


Even Nightmares End

by sam_bam16



Series: Dreaming in a Nightmare [5]
Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Gap Filler, Gen, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, i'll get back to y'all, idk my brain isnt working
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-02
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2020-02-16 04:55:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 58,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18684571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sam_bam16/pseuds/sam_bam16
Summary: It was over. For some, closure happens and for others, reconnections are made.Takes place after Joseph’s death, from only a couple hours later to more than a year after. Told through different point of views chronologically. Includes reactions from people in Henrietta to everyone still in New Jersey.And of course, at the very end, we have Joseph. Because what’s a Joseph trilogy without him?Final story in Dreaming in a Nightmare series





	1. Finlay Swan

**Author's Note:**

> [sambamart](http://www.sambamart.tumblr.com)
> 
>  
> 
> And here we are! Welcome to the final story of Dreaming in a Nightmare!
> 
> I'm not gonna lie, I'm used to y'all being a quiet bunch but I was...expecting more people to tell me what they thought of the second story (thanks thanks thanks Madeline and Char) but okay I guess. Maybe by the end of this one.
> 
> Anyhow, this story is going to be much shorter than the first two. Each chapter is done in a pov and we don't touch on the same pov twice. For right now, we're only updating once a week on Thursdays
> 
> Enjoy!

If someone were to ask him what the hell had gone on tonight, Finlay would answer the same way anyone here would.

No fucking idea. No fucking clue. No freaking fucking idea in the whole damn world of all worlds.

Yup.

That’d be his answer, just like it’d be anyone else’s answer.

But it was hardly the truth, was it? Because…well…Finlay kind of thought that maybe…

Maybe he really did know what’d happened.

“Hey.”

Finlay looked up from the floor where he sat. It was unhealthy to sit here, right here in this spot, but he still hadn’t found a way to move after…who knew how long. He was the only one here now, the crowds gone, the ambulances, the police…

Joseph.

Tears welled up, Finlay laughing at himself because he thought he’d gotten them all out by now. He wiped his eyes with angry hands and when he removed them, he found Jiang sitting across from him. “You shouldn’t sit there.”

He spared a glance down before scooting over beside Finlay. “Sorry,” Jiang whispered, looping his arm in Finlay’s and resting his head on his shoulder. Finlay tilted his head onto Jiang’s as he added “I…how…”

“Yeah,” Finlay murmured, wiping the last stray tears on his cheeks.

How hadn’t they seen this coming?

_Finlay stared with wide eyes as what sure as hell wasn’t a dragon-shaped firework spun out of some…freaky thing’s grasp. If he’d been skeptical of the cars even though he’d seen it happen with his own eyes…_

_He sure as fuck wasn’t skeptical about magic anymore. That was a fucking dragon right there. A fucking dragon that came from Joseph’s head._

_Joseph._

_“Yo…that…” Jiang started._

He never did get that sentence out.

Fresh tears once again worked themselves out his eyes even though he shut them tight. He never did have those long lashes that could hold shit back. Laughing again, he used his free hand to grab the hem of his shirt to mop his face clean. Jiang patted Finlay’s knee which seemed like a bad attempt at comfort but coming from this guy, it was everything. Like Finlay, Jiang was no good at this stuff. “Thanks.”

“I don’t get it,” Jiang said softly, the use of normal level sounds feeling wrong against the air of loss. “I just…” there was a suspicious sniffle but Finlay wasn’t going to call him out for it when he himself was sitting here a complete mess “why…dammit.”

“Yeah. Dammit.”

“This might sound bad but…I didn’t know I actually liked him enough to cry for him.”

A laugh, far less hysterical, escaped his mouth. “Yeah.”

_The dragon was flying straight for Joseph who Finlay had finally pinpointed after all the chaos and destruction. He’d been worried that something had happened to him but between the crowd, the dust, and the giant beasts, Finlay hadn’t been able to catch eye of the Jersey ass._

_Until now, as he stood there on the hood of his car like he was waiting for-_

_No._

_“Jiang,” Finlay whispered even though he was sure his voice couldn’t be heard, “Jiang, it’s…”_

_Going straight for him._

_And Joseph was just…_

_“He’s not…”_

_Yes, he was._

_Finlay knew he should start running towards Joseph with the off chance that he might make it to him in time but…he couldn’t manage anything beyond freezing in fear._

“Dude, we…” Jiang pressed his face into Finlay’s shoulder and he could feel him close his eyes “we…someone needs to check on his mom, man.”

His mom. Who knew if the cops had even told her yet? Had she seen this coming? Probably not. Why hadn’t…

“The promise,” Finlay whispered, horror dripping into him faster than a waterfall pouring down a cliff. He’d made a promise…

“Promise?” Jiang asked, his head poking up into Finlay’s face. There was evidence of tears now, those high cheeks glistening with them. “What promise?”

His lip quivered as he sat there on the brink of breaking down. Finlay had accepted a letter, made a promise not to look…

_You’ll know when._

“You stupid…” Finlay cried, covering his face from the prying eyes of the world. How could he just…and he’d known that Finlay wouldn’t break that promise. He’d known, that bastard had _known_ that Finlay would never break his promise and peek. “You stupid piece of shit. Y-You bastard…”

“What, man?”

He refused to remove his hands. “I promised.”

“What? What did you promise?”

Finlay had had a suicide note in his hands the whole time, for _hours_ , and he hadn’t even realized it. That kiss? That kiss had been a fucking _goodbye_.

“Not to open it,” he whispered, scrubbing his face as hard as he could. He couldn’t break now, he didn’t have the time for it. Someone had to check on Mrs. K and Finlay doubted that anyone in this stupid town cared to. He didn’t even care for his letter right now. What was the point? It was too late. He’d had the chance to save him and…

“Open…” Jiang trailed, rubbing the dirt off his hands. He made sure not to meet Finlay’s eyes. “Like…a letter? Did he…give you something, Finlay?”

Oh, he’d given him something alright. “We need to go check on his mom.”

_Between the sirens, the screams, the general cries of distress, and Finlay’s own pounding heart, he doubted anyone heard him shout._

_Honestly, Finlay wasn’t even sure that he’d shouted or if his mouth just flopped like a fucking fish as he stared in…he didn’t even know if it was confusion or shock. Fear? All he knew was that he just saw a dragon go through or maybe around the boy he loved. He couldn’t actually tell and really, neither made sense anyways. But that didn’t matter either because then, they both just…dropped._

_Dropped._

_Dropped?_

_“Joseph?” Finlay called softly, as though anyone could even hear his fearful cry. He was a literal mile away. He needed to get his feet moving to the boy lying there on the ground but…_

_Why couldn’t he move?_

“What’d he give you?” Jiang asked and if Finlay had been up to thinking par, he’d notice the little tinges of jealousy in Jiang’s eyes. But he didn’t and instead he slowly got to his feet, needing his hands to just be able to get into a crouch. Moving wasn’t easy but he needed to go check on Joseph’s mother. “Yo, Finlay, what’d he give you?”

Swallowing hard in hopes that he wouldn’t keep crying like an idiot as he ignored the white car he passed, he said “An envelope.”

“Like a note?” Jiang replied as he hurried to his side. “He gave you a suicide note, yeah?”

How could he have been so…so fucking _stupid_ to not know what it was? Joseph didn’t just give out letters, dammit. And that kiss? And that apology speech? “We need to go check on-” he halted his steps and glanced around the barren mess of the drag strip, “we…don’t have a car to use…”

They’d left theirs at the fairgrounds. And there was nothing but ruins left of the cars they’d driven over. There was one smashed into a somehow still standing flood light but Finlay had no doubts that it wouldn’t turn on. Not in that condition.

Lovely.

Jiang glanced around the ruins and pointed at a ragged mess of a Toyota. “Maybe we can get that bitch moving? Because walking to the fairgrounds...”

“Would suck fucking balls, yeah,” Finlay finished as they walked over to the abandoned car that still had its driver’s door open. It was off but, surprisingly, the key was still in the ignition. Or maybe unsurprisingly. “They must’ve gotten freaked and ran.”

“Who wouldn’t have?” Jiang snorted as he dropped into the driver’s seat, Finlay rounding the front and getting into the passenger as Jiang slammed his door shut. “I don’t even understand what the fuck happened. I thought that shit was a firework.” He glanced at Finlay with a confused curve to his brows. “It…was a firework, right?”

_“Joseph,” Finlay practically whispered, the words trapped in his throat as he slid onto the floor, the burn of it ripping his knees open. Staring down at the…sleeping, right? Had to be the sleeping form just…lying there, Finlay reached out only to come to a halt an inch above him._

_He couldn’t bring himself to check. He couldn’t do it._

_“Yo, is he- shit, why’s he look…”_

_Dead._

_“T…touch him,” Jiang said from a foot away, probably unable to come any closer. Finlay didn’t blame him. “Probs just hurt, yeah?”_

_There wasn’t a scratch on him._

_At least, nothing that was fresh._

_Swallowing the lump in his throat, Finlay set his hand ever so carefully onto Joseph’s. He was warm but even if he was…was dead, he’d still be…warm. Barely any time had passed. “I can’t do it.”_

_“Y-Yeah well…I…I can’t either.” He took step closer, a stick crunching under his shoe. “I know I act all badass but…”_

_“What makes you think I can,” Finlay murmured, unable to move his hand to check Joseph’s pulse. It’d be confirmation for what he could already tell._

_His chest wasn’t moving._

_Another crunch before Finlay could feel Jiang over his shoulder. “We…we can do it together…?”_

Resting his head on the window as Jiang got them moving back towards town, Finlay couldn’t help but laugh. Firework? No, that wasn’t a firework.

It’d been pure magic.

“I mean, what else could it have been, right?” Jiang continued because when he was nervous or confused, he never shut up. It was the only thing that ever gave him away. “Just one big fucking crazy firework. Yeah. Totally.” Finlay felt his burning gaze on him. “Finlay?”

Taking a nip at his thumbnail, Finlay wondered if he should share what he knew. It wasn’t like Joseph was going to call him out on it or something. “He’s such a…” he blew out a sigh that helped keep his tears at bay “such a fucking _asshole._ ”

“Well, an asshole you wanted to eat out.” Finlay glared at Jiang for his stupidity to think that now was even the time for something like that. Jiang at least had the decency to look embarrassed, focusing back on the street. “Sorry. Not the time.”

Finlay looked back out at the passing highway. “I’m pretty sure I’ll hate Fourth of July for the rest of my life.”

“How…” his fingers tapped on the wheel, “how long you think he’s been planning this?”

Images of a balcony and a boy with a gun flashed through Finlay’s mind. There’d probably been moments before that too. “Who knows.”

_With their hands interlaced, both of them reached out for where they prayed there’d be a pulse, neither of them pointing out the tremors running through the other. They paused just over his pulse point, somehow at the same moment, before taking a breath and setting their fingers down._

_“You’re…not gonna laugh at me for…for crying, are you…” Jiang whispered, his voice cracking as he pressed his face into Finlay’s shoulder. Shudders went from Jiang to Finlay, rolling like waves. “B-Because I’m pretty…sure that…”_

_Finlay pulled their hands back and stared down at his beautiful love, silent tears working their way down. He knew the only reason he was holding it together was because it’d been beaten into him not to cry in public. The strip was practically empty, everyone having ran away besides for some stragglers or whoever were getting checked by the medics. No one was even around them but still, those far off prying eyes went against his instincts._

_A small whimper escaped the muffled cries soaking his shirt. Finlay wrapped his arms around Jiang and said “We…we should get the cops, huh.”_

_Jiang stayed silent._

“I hope the sheriff made it to her before we did,” Jiang murmured as they reached the end of the highway, turning them onto Henrietta’s streets. “I’m not sure I can…shit…I don’t think I can do this…”

He wasn’t sure either but he knew that they had to. Or at least, Finlay had to. He was the fake boyfriend; it was his job to take care of his bae’s mom. He needed to at least check on her if nothing else. No one else in this stupid town was going to. With his leg bouncing up and down from his nerves, Finlay replied “You don’t have to if you don’t want. Ow!” He glared at Jiang while rubbing his arm, “Bitch!”

“No, bitch you, man,” Jiang snapped, pointing one of those bony fingers at him with dangerous irritation. “He’s our boy, man, and I don’t disrespect like that.”

“I didn’t say you would! I was just trying to make it easy on you!”

“Well, don’t. I’ll be fine. You doing this, then I’m doing this.”

Finlay nodded, his heartbeat picking up as they turned onto Joseph’s street. If they were the ones breaking the news to her…he was pretty sure that he’d die afterwards. “Driveway’s empty,” he noted depressingly. “What are the chances they came and left already?”

“Cross your fingers they did,” Jiang murmured, shutting off the car though neither of them made a move to get out.

They were afraid and they both knew it.

“We can do this,” Jiang said, pounding his chest in what was supposed to be encouragement. “We can do this.” He glanced over at Finlay. “Um…you get out first and…I’ll follow.”

“Coward,” he couldn’t help but snort in amusement despite the situation, opening the car door and getting out. Straightening his clothes as Jiang followed suit, Finlay took a deep breath, stretched, and walked towards the door. “We can fucking do this.”

“Love your confidence, baby,” Jiang whispered as Finlay tried the door, finding it open. “Can you just walk in like- fuck.”

Fuck indeed.

She must have had a visit from the sheriff already.

“Mrs. K,” Finlay whispered to the form curled in on herself, sitting down on the floor. She was hiding her face between her body and knees and it didn’t look like she was even breathing. She didn’t even twitch when he spoke, though Walnut who was sitting beside her picked up her head and barked. It was like a ‘hey, I see you but now’s not the time, okay?’ “Mrs. K?”

“I should’ve seen it,” she whispered, her head shaking back and forth. “I should’ve.”

He might have been able to manage to handle her screaming, crying, broken and wallowing on the floor…

Guilty was never one of them though.

Walking over, he lowered himself down onto the cold tile beside her and pulled her into a hug. They barely even knew each other but they were brought together by their grief. “Me too,” he sighed, not wanting to cry since she wasn’t. She didn’t need that pressure right now. “Me too, Mrs. K.”

He glanced up as Jiang sat down across from them. Jiang looked from Finlay to Joseph’s mother, making Finlay nod. Rubbing his knuckles, Jiang reached out and set his hand on one of Mrs. Kavinsky’s knees. “I’m…I’m really-”

“Don’t.”

Jiang flinched back like he’d been slapped, his eyes wide and the hand that had been touching her only a moment ago held aloft like it’d been burned. “I…”

Without even picking her head up, she cried “Sorry makes it too real. P-Please don’t.” She still wouldn’t show her face but she wrapped her arms around Finlay’s waist and stuffed her face in his chest. “I should’ve…” Mrs. K hiccupped, her body jolting his own, “S-So so _stupid._ I was supposed to make him _better_.”

“That makes two of us,” Finlay whispered in her hair, pretty sure that they’d crossed the line of strangers now. “He was literally right there and I just…” And he just let him go. He didn’t even know that he’d been given a goodbye. “He gave me a kiss goodbye and I didn’t even know it for what it was.”

Not to mention the letter.

Shit, he was such a fucking _idiot_.

“Aw, he kissed you again?” Jiang asked with a crappy smile that was trying to look happy and lighten the mood. “I’m jelly.”

Hands grasped his shirt tight as Mrs. Kavinsky finally looked up at him. And shit, was she a mess. Maybe it would’ve been better if she’d stayed hiding. At least then, Finlay wouldn’t have to look at evidence of his failure. Joseph’s mother looked like she’d been through one hell of a wringer with her eyes puffy and red, her nose raw from constant wiping, and just…everything.

Finlay should’ve seen it coming. He should’ve.

“You were never his boyfriend, were you.”

“I…” Finlay trailed, a blush of embarrassment flushing his face. Emerald eyes were staring deep into him, emerald that were lined with blood red, but they weren’t accusing. In fact, she seemed…well…weirdly okay. Aware. Awake. Everything Finlay hadn’t been expecting. “No. But…you just seemed so happy about it and we…”

Mrs. K laughed, shaking her head as she let go of him, setting her chin on her knees as she gazed out at nothing. “I just wanted him to be himself.”

“He loves him though,” Jiang said quickly, seemingly trying to help the situation or something. “He totally asked him out and everything.” Mrs. Kavinsky snorted as she bit on one of her nails that already looked like a ragged mess as it was. “It almost worked.”

“Loved, dear, loved.”

Jiang’s eyes turned downwards, unable to look at her any longer with such a brutal reminder. “Yeah, loved.” Joseph’s mother nodded, to him or her own thoughts, Finlay didn’t know but she nodded before sighing and stretching her legs out. Looking up, Jiang asked “Can…I ask you something?”

“Knock yourself out,” she replied with a shrug.

“How…are…” he cleared his throat and glanced at Finlay like he was supposed to back him up. Finlay had no idea what exactly he was supposed to be backing up. “How aren’t you a total mess?”

“Jiang,” Finlay hissed, shooting the best daggers he could with his eyes from such a stupid question. If he was close enough, he would’ve slapped his stupid face. “Seriously?”

“What?” he replied indignantly, gesturing at Mrs. Kavinsky who was literally just watching them with amusement glistening with the pain in her eyes. “Look at her! You and me look worse and he’s her son!” Finlay opened his mouth to snap something back but Jiang turned to Mrs. Kavinsky and asked “How high are you, lady?”

“Jiang!”

Mrs. Kavinsky laughed, resting her head against Finlay’s upper arm. “Not as high as you may think. I haven’t gotten high since this morning. The sheriff woke me…up…” her face scrunched in on itself, like she was thinking “Oh…Joseph, you bastard.” Mrs. Kavinsky laughed, covering her face as she shook her head. “You bastard, you _drugged_ me!”

Well, this family was as fucked up as Finlay knew it was. And yet, he’d still wanted in.

Jesus, he was a dumbass. A lovestruck dumbass, but a dumbass nonetheless.

Removing her hands with a sad sigh, she murmured “I should’ve seen it coming. I should’ve but I didn’t and now…” she laughed again but this was broken, reality barging in on her “now he’s gone.”

Finlay couldn’t find the words that’d help her. He didn’t even know what words to tell himself or Jiang to help themselves. Him and Jiang shared a pained glance as Mrs. Kavinsky began quietly crying into her hands, still resting against Finlay’s side. He decided that the best thing was to just let her cry herself out since she wasn’t in hysterics as he glanced around the foyer they found themselves sitting in. The tile was starting to be uncomfortable but he wasn’t going to- “The hell?”

“What?” Jiang asked at the same time Mrs. Kavinsky picked her head up and looked at Finlay with a face that was asking the same thing.

Squinting at the kitchen island because he figured that he was seeing things, Finlay muttered slowly “That…says my name.” His companions squinted at the island with him where a white paper was standing, folded in half like a card. “That says my name,” he repeated, practically scrambling to his feet and walking over, only feeling a little bad that he’d shrugged off Joseph’s mother. “This…says my name.”

“You said he left you something, didn’t you?”

“Well, yeah,” Finlay replied quietly, picking up the card but finding himself unable to unfold it. Did he want to look inside? “But that’s a letter and it’s in my car.”

“He gave you a letter?” Mrs. Kavinsky said in surprise. Finlay waited for the accusations of some sort but there came none. “And he’s going to make me look for mine? That ass. Typical.”

She…was making jokes. Was that healthy? Fuck if he knew. Not bothering with a reply, Finlay took a deep breath and opened his card.

_I don’t know which you’ll open first but I know you’ll make it here because you wouldn’t be able to bring yourself not to check on my mom._

The ass knew him too well.

_For the personal shit, see your letter. This one is something else entirely. Until someone of my family makes it here, I have a favor to ask. If you could, I need you to take care of my mom for me. It’s not going to be easy but you’re the only one I trust. You have to make sure she eats because she doesn’t remember to and you have to remind her to shower and brush her hair too. She sits outside in the backyard for two hours a day but since its so hot now, one hour before noon and one after five. Her favorite hairstyle is a braid and depending on her mental state, you might have to do it for her. Google it._

He was seriously putting this weight on him. Finlay was flattered that he was trusted this much but…he didn’t even really know the woman and he was expected to…take care of her like this? “Fuck, Joseph,” he whispered so low so that Mrs. K didn’t catch the words. He didn’t want her asking what the letter was about.

_Sometimes when she’s really high, she gets…violent. Its nothing personal. Just talk softly and bribe her with something. Usually something sweet works out. If not, you might have to…physically do something._

“Aw, fuck.”

_Usually just restraining her until she calms down. Think of it as a super tight hug. Make sure she’s in bed by nine with Walnut sleeping with her. Make sure she brushes her teeth because she forgets sometimes and remind her that sleeping in a bra will kill her boobs._

Right because that wasn’t weird or anything.

_It’s only as weird as you make it._

Ass.

_You’re probs panicking but don’t worry, it shouldn’t take my fam more than a couple days to make it to you. Depends when they find out. Just please take good care of her. She’s my everything and I’m trusting you with her. I know you won’t fail me. She’s the strongest person I’ve ever met in dealing with grief and, well, she’ll come to understand better than anyone ever will._

_Take good care of her, Fin_

_Joseph_

_P.S. Her fav colors are pink and green and her fav animal is a whale and she’s got a killer sense of humor so you can joke about anything with her. Idk if you need these facts but they might help. She’s also a history nerd, her favorite being ancient eastern euro cultures. She also loves historical romances and could live off fruity pebbles_

_P.P.S. Once she’s on her feet and better, Walnut is yours. She always did love you_

 

Whether he thought he could do this was irrelevant because Joseph trusted him to which meant Finlay had to. How hard could it be? She seemed pretty stable for the moment so maybe…he’d get lucky and she’d stay in her head until some family showed up. Also…Walnut was his? He couldn’t lie and say that that didn’t make him happy. It was like having a piece of Joseph that they’d always shared. To this day, Finlay still took Walnut out for his runs and for Joseph to recognize how close they were…

Glancing behind himself at the three curious sets of eyes watching him, Finlay sighed and set the card back on the island before sitting himself back down beside Mrs. K. He pulled her into a tight hug and whispered into her hair “I’ll make everything okay, you’ll see.”

This time, he would be sure to keep his word.


	2. Xia Jiang

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [sambamart](http://www.sambamart.tumblr.com)
> 
>  
> 
> Enjoy

“Yo, man, what the fuck,” Xia whispered as he watched Finlay cover Mrs. K with a blanket where she now laid asleep on the couch. She’d literally cried herself to sleep in Finlay’s arm on the floor of her big ass house. “Why is she like that?”

Finlay spared him a glance as he tucked her in before walking over with silent steps and leading Xia farther away so they didn’t disturb her sleep. “Like what?”

Seriously? Making sure to keep his voice down, Xia said in a furious whisper “Does she even care? You and I have cried more than she has!”

A fire screamed murder in Finlay’s eyes at the words. His fist was clenched by his side, looking ready to blacken an eye or two. “Don’t talk like that,” he practically snarled, his eyes at war with the pain and suffering etched on his face. “Don’t you dare disrespect him by saying shit about her.”

“Is she not disrespecting him by not being more upset?”

Clenching his jaw, Finlay took a deep breath and crossed his arms. “Everyone handles grief differently, man. Maybe this is her way.”

“She just lost her _only_ child.”

Jesus fucking Christ.

K was seriously dead. Had been dead for at least a couple hours now.

Dead.

Xia was going to throw up. “I think I need the bathroom.”

Sorrow clouded Finlay’s angry eyes as he took Jiang’s hand and led him to the downstairs bathroom, even flicking on the light for him. “And I lost the boy I just confessed to and you lost a friend. We all handle it differently, Xia. We can’t even begin to assume what’s going on for her right-”

A phone rang, loud and brash in the deathly quiet of the house. It was rude, this phone, not only interrupting Finlay but interrupting the mourning the quiet was celebrating. It was neither of their phones though and from the look they shared, Xia knew that whether they liked it or not, they had to answer it.

Maybe…this was the easiest way to break the news? As long as Xia didn’t have to do it…

Joseph was dead. Joseph was dead and Xia had been too stupid, too damn…bitchy to see that his buddy was suffering. No, that was a lie, wasn’t it? He’d seen, they’d all seen, the scars upon scars upon scars etched into Joseph’s arm. Xia had even seen them on his thighs a few times when his shorts would ride up.

He’d seen. They’d all seen. Seen and did nothing.

Wiping away his tears that had ruined his need to vomit – he wasn’t even sure if that was a good thing or not – Xia followed Finlay as they tried to locate the ringing. The ringing, it seemed, wanted to lead them upstairs, probably into Mrs. Kavinsky’s room.

Neither of them wanted to go up there. They’d have to pass Joseph’s room and they both knew that there was no way that they’d be able to resist the urge to look in. Maybe even go in.

Joseph was seriously gone. Just…poof like magic. One second Xia had been annoyed with him, taking the keys to drive a Mitsu for his stupid plan and the next…he was in his house trying to hold it steady until his family came.

In the matter of an hour, life had completely changed. Bam! 360 into something entirely different.

“I guess…up we go,” Finlay whispered, toeing off his Jordans before beginning the ascent of doom. They were seriously doing this and Xia couldn’t guarantee that he wouldn’t throw up in Mrs. K’s room. But he followed because that’s what a crew did and to Xia, his crew was his ride and die.

Fuck.

One did die.

“Oh my God,” Xia almost cried as he shut his eyes once they reached the top of the stairs. The ringing had stopped but it started up a moment later, someone really wanting to reach Mrs. Kavinsky. God only knew why. Holding out his hand into the air he couldn’t see, Xia said “Can you lead me with you? I…I really can’t look, Finlay.”

Silence met his words but a moment later, a warm hand took his and walked him forward. A door closed behind him and only then did Xia open his eyes and find himself in the safety of Mrs. Kavinsky’s room. It felt wrong to stand here without Joseph telling them it was okay. It obviously felt wrong without his mother saying okay but for some reason…it was Joseph’s approval that would’ve made Jiang take that first step in.

Neither of them spoke as Finlay walked forward, looking around for her phone which he discovered on the floor. “It says Yulian and has a picture of a blonde- fuck, wait, I think I’ve seen…I think…?”

Xia didn’t know and didn’t care whether or not Finlay knew him. Someone needed to answer that damn phone. “Okay well…you gonna-”

“Hello?” Finlay said, opening the phone without a pause. Why wasn’t he holding it to his ear? This ass didn’t seriously put it on speaker, did he?

The fuck ass did.

“Hello?” the person on the other line said, sounding confused as fuck. To be expected of course when he was ready for Mrs. K and instead got Finlay’s deep ass Georgia voice. “Who’s this?”

Clearing his throat before taking a deep breath and sitting on the edge of the unmade bed, Finlay patted the spot beside him as he said “Um, sir, my name’s Finlay. Can I ask how you’re related?”

Damn, Xia thought he had balls but he’d never have been able to just straight up act like he had the right to answer the phone like that. Taking a seat beside Finlay, Xia rested his head on his buddy’s shoulder as the man replied “Maybe after you tell me who you are, Finlay.”

“Um…I, um…a friend of…of…”

He couldn’t do it.

He couldn’t say Joseph.

“Joseph,” Xia said, his voice not sounding as strong as he’d like it to in comparison to the man on the line. Xia didn’t know what he looked like but he sounded powerful. Or at least tall. His voice was kind of booming, even as deep as Finlay’s except that his accent was of the north, not the south. “We’re friends of Joseph. My name’s Xia.”

“Okay, friends of Joseph,” the man, Yulian, said, still sounding confused but now he seemed…less accusatory which made no sense. But they weren’t going to bother questioning him. “I’m Yulian, Joseph’s uncle. His mom is my sister-in-law.”

Well, they’d wanted family, hadn’t they?

“Is there a reason you have her phone?”

They shared a terrified glance before Finlay shut his eyes and said barely over the level of a whisper “She’s asleep. Um, downstairs. We’re upstairs.”

A thoughtful silence met Finlay’s words before Yulian asked “Where’s Joseph then? Can you pass the phone on?”

Xia was not proud at all of the huge ugly snotty snort that came out of him right then. Tears welled in his eyes and it felt like his throat was ready to rip open. Pass it on? No, they fucking couldn’t because he was fucking _dead._

Oh God.

Rushing to his feet, Xia ran to half closed door that he hoped was a bathroom and not a closet, dashing in without even hitting the light and sliding down in front of the toilet. It burned as everything in his stomach came back up, searing his throat, his mouth, his nose.

And his heart.

No one could pass on the phone for him. Except maybe God.

Xia broke into laughter, sitting there and covering his gross face full of boogers, tears, and vomit. God. He didn’t even believe in God and yet here he was wishing God could get the phone to Joseph.

Finlay was watching him with concern, seemingly wishing he could come hug the life out of Xia, but he stayed put and murmured “Um, I’m sorry, sir, but…I can’t get the phone to him. He’s…um…”

“Asleep? In the hospital?”

More like the sheriff’s morgue.

“Hello?” Yulian said, beginning to sound annoyed as fuck. “Look guys, I seriously don’t have the time for this. Either give the phone to Joseph or wake Vese- his mother up. It’s important and I don’t have time for idiocy.”

“No one can give the phone to him except God, man,” Xia cried in his laughter, the words not even sounding like words anymore. He didn’t know what the fuck he was feeling. Hysterics. Yeah, he’d reached the point of hysterics. Definitely. He was losing his fucking mind over a boy he didn’t even know he’d liked this much and now he wished he’d told him how much he’d actually liked him. “Missed my chance!”

He couldn’t see Finlay’s face because Xia had his own covered but he knew it had to be worried as fuck. That was just how Finlay was; he worried for even a gnat.

God, they would’ve been perfect together.

“What he’d say? I can’t hear nor understand. Seriously, I really need to talk-”

“Joseph’s dead.”

The silence before had been a thoughtful one but with Finlay’s interruption, it became something else entirely. Confused, panicked, something, everything even.

“Excuse me?”

Finlay breathed in a shuddering breath that meant he was on the brink of tears. With a voice stronger than anything Xia could’ve ever managed, he repeated “Joseph’s dead.” They waited in silence once more so Finlay must’ve taken that as he cue to keep going. “I’m…I’m really really sorry for your loss, sir. Um…um,” Xia peeked through his fingers and watched Finlay harshly rub away tears “T-They listed it as a fireworks accident but um…”

_“Fireworks accident,” Mrs. K laughed in her tears, her face lost in Finlay’s chest._

_“What’s that?” Xia whispered, scooting closer to her. He felt useless because they were more strangers than anything else but he wasn’t going to go anywhere tonight. Or tomorrow or even the day after. If Finlay was staying then Xia was too._

_They’d do that much for their boy._

_“They called it…they called it a fireworks accident.” She laughed again. “As if I’m stupid and don’t know my own son. They didn’t even ask me to identify his body. ‘Absolutely no doubt it’s your son, ma’am.’ As if those pigs know anything about my child. Fireworks accident my fucking ass.”_

“Suicide.” He watched Finlay nod at the phone as if Yulian could even see him. Xia was so fucking dead to the world right now that just sitting by his vomit still sitting in the toilet didn’t even bother him. Hell, his disgusting mouth and face didn’t even bug him. “Suicide,” Yulian repeated, much softer than before.

“Um…um, yeah,” Finlay said after a deep breath. “A-A couple hours ago, sir.”

“A couple hours ago,” Yulian echoed.

“We…we were…”

“It’s okay,” the man whispered, almost sounding like Mrs. Kavinsky. Xia wasn’t even sure how he did but somehow…it was like her way of comforting them even though she was in pain too. “You don’t have to tell me the details. Is she sleeping because-”

“Yeah, the sheriff came and told her and then me and Xia came to check on her.”

“Ah. That’s very brave of both of you. Thank you.”

It was stupid but somehow, it felt like Joseph had just told them thank you for making sure his mom was okay. For being probably the only people in this town coming to check that she was okay. “I don’t think we’re very brave when we’re bawling like fucking babies, man.”

“Xia, was it?” Xia nodded as if that was going to do anything. “You’re brave because you’re hurting and maybe saw some things and yet all you two cared about was making sure she was okay. That makes you brave. And tears make you human. And sometimes, throwing up makes your stomach feel better.”

Fuck, he’d heard. But he had to have, really. It wasn’t like Xia had been quiet in anything. “I actually kinda feel a bit better. I think it might be your voice though.” He blushed as he murmured “It kind of reminds me of Joseph’s. Stupid, I know.”

“Why does it have to be stupid?”

With a shrug, Xia rested his head on the toilet and sighed “Dunno. Just sounds that way.”

“Um so…we’re gonna stay with her until, like, you or somebody shows up,” Finlay said, looking like he had much more handle of himself. “I got really lucky with you calling though because I don’t think I would’ve been able to do it myself.”

Yulian said nothing, almost like he hadn’t heard him. It hadn’t been luck, had it? Because this man had been calling urgently, sounding ready to beat the shit out of them when he thought they were messing around. “You called for a reason. Can I ask why?”

A heavy sigh tore through the speaker. “Might as well throw more pain in the house of suffering, right?” Xia and Finlay shared a confused glance. “I called because I had some…bad news to tell Vesela. Joseph’s mom. Though honestly, my news is nothing compared to yours. At all.”

“What kind of news? We can tell her.” Finlay gave him a dirty look. “I mean, maybe. Idk, man, depends. We’re not as tough as we make ourselves out to be.”

Sighing again, Yulian said in a voice that was either broken or exhausted or even both “Her husband, Joseph’s father, is comatose. We don’t what’s wrong with him.”

Fuck, God just wanted to kill the poor woman, didn’t He? Xia knew there was a reason he wasn’t a believer. “Comatose?”

“Yup,” Yulian replied, popping the ‘p’ and sounding like he honestly didn’t even care. “Was at my house for dinner, he and my wife were talking outside, she starts calling out in a panic, and…he’s just…there. Almost asleep even. I brought him to a hospital but they have no idea what’s wrong with him. They’re running more tests but…I don’t know. And his timing is shit. Couldn’t he have conked out some other time?”

“This was a couple hours ago?” Finlay asked, looking way to serious for Xia’s liking. Xia felt like he was missing something huge. “Right?”

“Yeah. Weird as fuck, right?”

From the look on Finlay’s face, it was much more than that. He said nothing of it, however, instead asking “So…you’re going to come, yeah? We don’t mind taking care of her until you do.”

“You guys were close with Joseph?”

Close? No, no one could ever get close because he’d never let them but they’d been something. Xia knew that. They’d been something special to Joseph because he trusted them. Finlay had meant everything to Joseph even if he’d never admitted it. They’d been as close as Joseph would allow them. “How…how well do you know your nephew, sir,” Xia couldn’t help but laugh. “He doesn’t let anyone get close.”

“Oh I know that. Trust me. But if you guys showed up to check on his mother, it means that he was something to you. And he could’ve only been something to you if you guys were something to him.”

Finlay looked on the verge of tears all over again, his mouth twisting as he tried not to cry and his nostrils flaring as he tried to hold it in. “I…” he laughed then, and Xia knew he was trying to put his feelings into words for this man he’d never met, “I was in love with him. I _am_ still in love with him. How’s that for close? If it weren’t for that jackass of a man who deserves to be dead instead of unconscious, we would’ve been together. How’s that for close, sir? I love him and he wanted to be with me but he couldn’t do it. How’s that?”

Xia hadn’t known how they’d made up or what words had been spoken but this admission made him hate the fact that they hadn’t had their chance together. Sure, Xia had known about their cute little couple hour relationship that hadn’t lasted but…he hadn’t known or maybe just hadn’t understood that Joseph had truly wanted Finlay too.

Joseph had always been this…hardened yet utterly broken dude that didn’t show that he felt anything.

“He gave me a goodbye kiss that I was too stupid to even know was a goodbye,” Finlay cried, dropping the phone onto the floor as he covered his face. “Too _fucking_ stupid! H-How’s that for close, huh?”

Falling into his pain, Finlay slid down onto the floor, his head in his hands, and sobbed. Sobbed like Xia had never seen before and he’d seen Finlay at his lowest points. And yet here was this beautiful strong boy sobbing for the one he’d fallen for.

Life was so unfair.

Dragging himself up, Xia flushed the toilet and washed his face before crawling over to Finlay and pulling him into the best hug he could manage. Xia didn’t know how to do comfort, sucked at it worse than anyone, but he wasn’t going to just sit there and let Finlay cry alone. Suffer alone.

Hadn’t they done enough of that to Joseph?

He’d completely forgotten that Joseph’s uncle was still on the phone until the man spoke. “I’ll be there as soon as I can, okay? Tomorrow, I promise. I’ll be there, okay? You guys just hang in there and I’ll be there. Don’t worry about anything. Tomorrow, I promise, okay, guys?”

Finlay wasn’t up to answering between his sobs but Xia replied softly “Okay. Thank you. Um…sir, um…Mrs. K…like, she’s an addict, y’know? Um…do we deny her or just…”

“Fucking hell,” Yulian muttered, blowing out a heavy breath. “Oh Vesela… If, and only if, if you can’t it’s okay, but if you can, try to keep her clean. I’ll deal with it when I get there. Just try to keep her occupied or sleeping or something. If you can’t, it’s okay, don’t worry.”

Xia was dumping all the drugs down the toilet tonight. He didn’t care if she wanted to beat the fuck out of him, he was doing it. Joseph loved his mom more than anyone, put her on a fucking pedestal, and whether she liked it or not, Xia was going to get her clean for him. “Okay. I can handle it. Tomorrow then?”

“Definitely. You need anything, just call me, okay?”

“Her phone has a code.”

“Give me your number and I’ll call you so you can save it.”

Xia passed on his number without hesitation before asking “Do…do you think she’ll…I just…Finlay said I shouldn’t judge but she’s…”

“Not taking it as hard as you’d like?”

“Yeah.”

“Vesela’s always known how to handle grief. I don’t know how she does it, or how my wife does for that matter, but they do. They think of everyone’s suffering before their own. If she stays in her right mind, trust me, she’ll be digging in Joseph’s room already by tomorrow.”

He didn’t know if that was a good thing or not. She was taking this too damn…well. She was like a fucking soldier who could take anything.

Maybe…maybe it was a good thing. She’d respect Josephs memory better than anyone that way. She’d remember him for everything he was, maybe even give Xia and Finlay a story or two, she’d…maybe even understand.

She may not be taking it the way Xia had expected but suddenly he realized that he didn’t want her to. He wanted her to be strong like she was, he wanted her to dig for answers, to tell him things that he’d never known, to make him feel better too. Joseph had always said she was the most amazing person in the world. Xia didn’t want her to change. He wanted her to be everything Joseph remembered because he knew that that was exactly what Joseph would’ve wanted.

And that was everything Xia now wanted for him.


	3. Yulian Simeonov

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [sambamart](http://www.sambamart.tumblr.com)
> 
> I think I forgot to say this last week but Ramadan Kareem to my fellow Muslims! May your month be blessed! And everyone else's months toooooo
> 
> Enjoy!

He’d only wanted to bring Anka.

“How do you know where you’re going?” Andrey asked curiously, glancing out the window and at the town they drove through.

Yulian had only wanted to bring Anka because Anka was like him. They cried, but they cried quietly. They cried in secret. Not because they were ashamed but because they didn’t want to throw their grief on anyone else.

Andrey was like…Yulian didn’t even know because he wasn’t like Nikol either. Nikol was like Vesela; they held their ground no matter how hard it was. Andrey didn’t just cry, he sobbed. To this minute, he was still sniffling and Yulian understood because obviously they’d all just lost someone that they shouldn’t have but he needed his kids strong if they were going to help Vesela.

“Tatko?” Andrey said, trying to get his attention. “How do you know where you’re going?”

He was tired of secrets. He was tired of the bullshit everyone’s lives had become. He was tired of damn everything. “I came here a couple years ago.”

The burn of Andrey’s eyes seared through his cheek but the burn of Anka’s on the back of his head was worse. “You what?”

“Came here a couple years ago,” he repeated, taking a right before he realized he should’ve gone left. “Fuck. Left, not right.” Making an illegal u-turn on the empty street, he continued “In the summer. I told you guys I’m working all day and I told Ivo I’m taking the day off.”

Anka’s eyes were literally burning holes in him and melting his brain. “Well, gee, thanks for your honesty.”

“Check that attitude. I’m not in the mood for it.” He wasn’t in the mood for anything right now. Yulian had left a mess back home and was coming into another.

_“I’m taking leave-”_

_“Now?” Petar snapped, getting to his feet. He’d never liked Yulian and that wasn’t going to change anytime soon. Ivo only kept him as an advisor because this man knew how to move money like no one else but he’d told Yulian long ago that when he took over, take him the fuck off because he’d be nothing but trouble for him. “Are you out of your mind?”_

_Lubomir threw Petar a glare but explained “Yulian, with us on such shaky grounds right now, you leaving wouldn’t be best. This is your moment to step up until Lord Kavinsky is back on his feet.”_

_“Ivo isn’t getting back on his feet anytime soon as much as I’d love that.” And Yulian would because not only did he not want this shitty position but he wanted to see how much it’d break Ivo to know that his son was dead. Dead by his own hand at that. “We need to look at this as something long term because as of now, doctors don’t know what the fuck is wrong with him and don’t see him waking up anytime soon.”_

_“You’re saying it yourself,” Elijah snorted, crossing his arms. He simply didn’t like Yulian, as Yulian had learned through Ivo, because he’d apparently had had a crush on Nikol._

_Yeah, these idiots were that petty to still hold grudges over something like that._

_“This is long term,” Elijah continued, “word hasn’t gotten out yet, but as soon as our rivals and even allies find out that Lord Kavinsky is comatose, it’s going to be a shit show. You need to establish your leadership now, not later. Nothing is more important than that.”_

_Getting annoyed on top of his already extreme annoyance would do him no good in dealing with these guys. Taking a deep breath and wishing he could stand and loom over the table like Ivo did when he wanted to make a point without being in pain, Yulian decided to try a different power tactic._

_The good old sympathy card._

_Ivo wouldn’t appreciate family stuff being said but Yulian wasn’t Ivo and Ivo wasn’t waking up anytime soon. “I’m going to Virginia. My flight leaves in an hour. I need to go to my sister-in-law who just lost her son. Trust me, that’s far more important than petty disputes.”_

_It took a minute for it to sink in before Asen’s eyes went wide where he stood behind his father’s chair. “Your…sister…Joseph? Joseph, Yulian?”_

_The name drifted through the room, everyone who hadn’t gotten it before now catching on. Yulian stood and grabbed his cane – Joseph’s gift – and nodded to Asen. “He committed suicide yesterday. I need to go see Vesela and get her back here.”_

_He didn’t even know that Asen’s narrow eyes could go any wider than they already were. “You’re…you’re not serious, are you? That’s…that’s not even fucking funny.”_

_“No, it’s not.” His reaction was like Nikol’s except with far less panic and screaming. She wasn’t the type to scream and cry loudly but in that moment, just knowing that it was suicide, she’d broken. He didn’t blame them for being in denial. It wasn’t easy to process that fact that someone you loved was gone because they couldn’t take it anymore. “And if I was disgusting enough to make a joke like that, you should kill me for it. Now I really have to leave.” Glancing around at the men in the room, he said in the most commanding Ivo voice he could manage “Asen’s in charge until I get back.”_

_Most men had the decorum not to drop their jaws but not all. “What?” Petar practically snapped, getting to his feet with the ugly screech of his chair pushing back. “Asen? What is he but a door boy?”_

_Asen eyes flashed but it wasn’t effective with the ocean of tears trying to squeeze their way out. Lubomir, on the other hand, was more than willing to defend his son. “Watch yourself, Petar. You wish you had half the brain Asen does.”_

_“This isn’t up for discussion,” Yulian cut in, hoping his annoyance showed well. Ivo had always said that if you were pissed, make sure you show them because then they’ll shut their mouths. Yulian didn’t think it was as effective with him because he wasn’t a fucking psychopath but he tried anyways. “Asen is in charge. Lubomir after him. That’s it. Have some damn respect for your Lord and his deceased son and stop wasting my time.”_

_Bringing up Ivo and Joseph brought the effect he’d wanted._

Turning down the street he knew was Vesela’s even though he hadn’t been allowed to come that fateful day years ago, Yulian tapped the steering wheel nervously. He was afraid. He was afraid but he couldn’t show it and he needed to be as strong as possible because he had people relying on him right now.

But he was still afraid.

“This one, I think,” he murmured, mostly to himself really, as he turned into the driveway of a huge house. Mansion would’ve been a better word. The only thing that made it different from the rest of the cookie cutter street was a shitty Honda that looked like it’d been through a lot. There was no identity to this home that made it feel like anyone lived here.

“What’s with the car?” Andrey muttered as they got out of the car Yulian had rented. “It looks like it’s seen some stuff.” He walked over and knocked atop where half the car’s face was missing. “What the hell has it been through?”

“Automotive chicken.”

All three of their heads flew in the direction of the voice, revealing a boy standing behind them. A boy and a dog on a leash in fact. A boy and a dog on leash that Yulian actually remembered driving past.

A boy whose voice Yulian distinctly remembered.

“You must be Finlay,” Yulian greeted, hobbling over because his limp was getting worse with age. He put more weight on his cane than his leg nowadays. “Yulian,” he said, sticking out his hand.

The dog barked and suddenly, Yulian remembered Vesela telling him about the dog she’d gotten from a market. This thing couldn’t be it though, could it? It was huge. “Shh,” Finlay told the dog, patting her head. “We don’t eat friends. You know that.” Taking the offered hand, he shook it, giving Yulian a shaky smile. “Yeah. Lemme guess…the accent gave me away. Bet you don’t hear a lot of southern boys in Jersey.”

“Oh, I hear southern,” Yulian laughed, hoping he could put this poor child at ease. “South Jersey, that is.”

Finlay snorted as he led them over to the house, giving a constipated smile to each of Yulian’s kids. “South Jersey ain’t the real south, sir. I’m a fucking Georgia peach, through and through. Now that is southern.” He knocked on the hood of the Honda, nodding at Andrey. “For the record, I don’t drive shit like this. I got way more class.”

“Do you? I had noooo idea, peach boy.” The second voice brought a genuine smile to Finlay’s face as a shorter boy walked out of the house, looking as puffy eyed as Andrey. He didn’t come close though, seemingly apprehensive about meeting anyone. “Anyways, that thing is not made for driving. It’s a fucking safety hazard. We jacked it to get here.”

“I mean, they left it behind,” Finlay explained, shooting the shorter boy a glance, “and our cars were a couple miles walk away. Emergencies call for certain things.” He sent another look over to the boy who had to be Xia. “We should seriously go get our cars.”

“No rush. It’s not like someone’s going to jack ‘em. And even if they did, this is fucking Henrietta, man. Ain’t no one gonna get away with jacking a car because we all know whose car is who. If some dumbass thinks he can get away with driving my Supra, I’ll poke his fucking eyes out.” He jabbed to fingers in the universal eye stabbing motion. “Bam. Fucker goes blind.”

“You have a problem, dear, and that is violence,” Finlay laughed as he gestured for them to follow. “But who am I to talk.”

“Yeah Mr. Anger Issues. Don’t preach. And let’s not get into violent because we’d spend weeks detailing every violent move K-” Xia suddenly froze in the doorway, Finlay nearly knocking into him. Finlay patted his shoulder and whispered something. The shorter boy nodded before walking in, his mood dampened entirely. “Welcome to Casa de depression. Have a seat.”

“They lived here?” Andrey muttered, eyeing the place with a distasteful eye. Yulian didn’t disagree; he didn’t like it at all. It was beautiful, sure, but it just felt…wrong. “They’re two people. Why would they need all this? They’re not even the type to want all this.”

“You’re who?” Xia asked, his eyes particularly critical. He nodded at Anka, “And you too.”

It took a minute for Andrey to pay attention before sticking out his hand and saying “Joseph’s cousin, Andrey. Nice to meet you.”

“The one with the baby, yeah?” Finlay called from the kitchen where he was putting food and water for the dog. “She’s almost a year now or something.”

Andrey looked shocked at Finlay’s knowledge and Yulian was with him on that one. “How’d you know that?”

Looking up from where he was placing the bowls, Finlay replied “Oh, Joseph told me. He showed me a few pictures too. She’s really cute, congratulations. Though he always hated her name. ‘Is he stupid?’ ‘Do I look like a fucking role model?’”

“That was the worst Jersey accent ever,” Xia muttered, his arms crossed as he sat down on a barstool. “He’d kick your ass for that.”

“Where’d he get pictures from?” Anka asked, looking as confused as Yulian felt. But her question brought on panic on Andrey’s face which was way more confusing than Joseph having pictures. Anka caught her brother’s reaction, her eyes narrowing dangerously. “You…you used to talk to him? And you didn’t even tell me? Are you _stupid_?”

Blushing and not meeting his sister’s eyes, Andrey mumbled “He asked me not to tell, okay?”

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Annoyance flickered in Andrey’s eyes, shoving his hands into his pockets though Yulian could tell they were fists. “You know how hard it was to get his number? I worked for it. I stole tetíncho’s phone. You know how much trouble I could’ve gotten for that?”

“What’s a tetincho?” Xia asked, the word sounding broken from his mouth.

“Uncle married to a mother’s sister.”

“Oh, so Joseph’s dad, you mean. The jackass.”

“The asshole, yeah.”

Catching Finlay’s eye who was staring at Yulian with concern, Yulian raised a brow in question as Anka chewed out her brother. Yulian couldn’t find it within himself to be annoyed in not having this knowledge because, really, he’d done the same damn thing. “Don’t you need to sit?” Finlay asked. “You look really tired.”

“I do, thank you,” Yulian sighed, walking past his now silent mess of kids and dropping onto one of the couches. He glanced around the silent home. “Vesela’s asleep?”

“Yeah. She went to bed right before I took Walnut out for a walk. I’m having trouble figuring out how to convince her to shower. She’s been throwing up all morning but I can’t seem to get her in without actually physically putting her in there.”

How many teenage boys in this damn world would put this much care into taking care of their dead friend’s mother?

Dead lover, Yulian should correct.

“Why throwing up?”

Xia came and threw himself into the couch opposite of Yulian. “I flushed all the drugs in the house – minus Joseph’s room because I’m not going in there without her – down the toilet. Every ounce or pill I could find. She wasn’t happy but she also didn’t try to kill me so I consider that a win.” Stretching with a large yawn, Xia added “I told Finlay we just push her in and once she’s soaking wet and twenty pounds more with her clothes, she’ll take a shower because she’s already there.”

Rolling his eyes like they’d gone over this a million times, Finlay sat down beside Walnut on the floor. “And I told you, we could end up just getting her sick like that.”

“She’s been throwing up all morning, man.”

“That’s withdrawal, not illness. I’m not getting her sick. I’ll convince her. I’ll bribe her with something sweet, you’ll see.”

“Whatever, you know best, I guess.” He nodded at Yulian. “So what happens now? Do note that he and I aren’t leaving anytime soon. Not until Mrs. K is good and she’s going home. We’re permanent residents.”

Nothing made Yulian happier than knowing that Joseph had had good friends like these two. He had no idea what they were truly like or how they’d been with Joseph, but so far, he liked them both. They seemed as genuine as Emilio ever had if not far less…wholesome. But Emilio wasn’t exactly wholesome anymore either. “I appreciate the help then. I’m going to need it. Packing this place up is going to be hell.” Giving it another glance around, he muttered “I don’t like it.”

“No one does, sir,” Finlay snorted, one arm resting on his raised knee. “Joseph always hated it here. The house specifically, I mean. In theory, it’s nice but…” he shrugged, not meeting anyone’s eyes, “it doesn’t have good memories like a home should.”

Somehow, Yulian knew that he was hinting at something but he didn’t push. This wasn’t the time for it. “Did anyone from the sheriff’s office come or…anything about…” Yulian didn’t want to say ‘releasing Joseph’s body’ because then he’d freak out the teens in this room.

“They didn’t even ask for her to identify, man,” Xia all but snapped, looking angry as hell. “Everyone knows that’s fucking protocol but they’re like ‘oh, it’s definitely him.’ Like, yeah, we all know that but that doesn’t mean nothing.”

“How are you so sure though?” Anka asked, sitting down beside Yulian with her arms crossed in both defensiveness and frustration. “If no one saw-”

“We did,” Finlay cut her off, his eyes flashing something dangerous. “That’s enough proof.”

“Yo, man, wasn’t Lynch standing next to him?”

Finlay glanced over at Xia, a considering look coming over his face like he couldn’t remember. “Was he? My brain’s blocked out the ugly parts.”

“I hadn’t realized there were any pretty parts.”

“The ugly parts are where if I’d actually moved instead of freezing, I could’ve done something.”

“Ah,” Xia whispered, curling in on himself. “Yeah, those would be the ugly parts. But like, if Lynch _was_ next to him…I mean…how do you just decide to let it happen? Like, your there, he’s there-”

“Do you know what was in the car?” Finlay asked softly, putting his entire focus on petting the big dog. “What he was hiding? I think Joseph was Lynch’s very last thought on his mind.”

Xia’s nose scrunched and his eyebrows curved in with the rest of his confused face. It almost made him seem younger. Innocent. “I don’t think he told us.” Turning around to look at Finlay, he asked “Did he tell you? He had to have. He tells you shit.”

“He kidnapped his brother.”

It was Andrey who, surprisingly, found his voice before anyone else. “I’m sorry, did you just say my cousin _kidnapped_ someone’s brother?”

Finlay looked up at Andrey, seemingly dead on emotions. “Yup. Drugged him and stuffed him in his trunk for his older brother to find.”

“He kidnapped baby Lynch?” Xia said, the ends of his words upturning from his shock. “Matthew? Are you fucking serious? Our dude is screwed in the brain but not that fucking screwed.”

Yulian didn’t bother pointing out how Xia constantly referred to Joseph as still being alive. “How screwed we talking?”

Turning back around with a guilty look on his face, Xia scratched his nails before they found their way to his mouth. From his mouth, they went back to being scratched at. “Um…well…how well do you know your nephew?”

“Very well.” Yulian felt like he’d been the only who’d ever payed any attention to Joseph’s turbulent moods and mental state. Besides maybe Vesela. “You?” Changing his mind because he was asking the wrong one, he nodded over at Finlay. “Actually, I should ask you.”

“Why him?” Anka muttered. Yulian had no idea what her problem was but everything seemed to piss her off about Xia and Finlay. Maybe because they’d been close to Joseph. Maybe her anger was still stemming from Andrey who had apparently been talking to Joseph. Or it was just everything down to chipping her nail. He couldn’t tell with Anka anymore. “What’s so special about you?”

“Yo, what’s with the attitude?” Xia snapped, now looking as pissed as Anka. Yulian knew feelings were extremely stretched right now – stretched and beyond exhausted – but Jesus. “Excuse you.”

“Extremely well,” Finlay answered, ignoring the silent battle of wills going on. “Better than you, that I can guarantee. Almost as good as Mrs. K actually.”

Guarantee, huh? Interesting. But if they’d in fact liked each other the way Finlay had said then…maybe not so surprising. There had been no one he’d trusted more than Emilio and Finlay was now in Emilio’s place. “So me saying that I don’t think he had a healthy mind isn’t surprising.”

“Fuck no,” Xia laughed. “The entire Henrietta thinks he’s whack. They think it’s because of the drugs. I ain’t never met no one yet who’s known him before them. The only one I can think of is maybe Skov’s half bro- fuck.” He looked over his shoulder to Finlay, his body tense. “Yo, man, why the hell haven’t we heard from Skov? Or Prokopenko? You don’t think that’s weird? The whole town has to know by now.”

He didn’t know what a Skov or a Prokopenko was, but he had a feeling they were fellow friends. Finlay seemed concerned by Xia’s words as he scratched his head before gnawing on his thumbnail. “That’s…there’s no way Skov wouldn’t call us up. Unless he’s occupied but what would he be occupied with?” He tapped his leg, pulling out his phone, “I should call.”

“What the fuck, are you nuts? We’ve been sobbing like bitches since last night and you just want to tell him over the phone?”

“How else are we supposed to? I’m not going looking for him and I wouldn’t leave this house anyways.” Finlay dialed and opened the speaker. “Might as well see where his head’s at, yeah?”


	4. Blake Skovron

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [sambamart](http://www.sambamart.tumblr.com)
> 
> Enjoyssss

When people died, Blake had this little problem.

He laughed.

“Are you laughing, you fucking little shit?” Jiang snapped, sounding even scarier over the phone than he did in person. It made no sense whatsoever but somehow, it was currently possible. “Do you know how easily I can beat your scrawny prodigy ass into a pulp? I won’t even leave you as a pulp, I’ll-”

“Xia,” Swan sighed, cutting him off before things got even more gruesome. Thank God because Blake was going to have nightmares tonight. Not that he wasn’t going to have any anyways. He hadn’t slept properly the past couple of days. Also…Xia? They didn’t do first names often and even then, it was reserved for anger and rough times.

This definitely qualified as a rough time for everyone. Blake was only going to make it worse with his own share of news.

“He’s fucking laughing!”

“I don’t mean anything by it!” Blake explained quickly. He really didn’t want to end up as something worse than pulp. “I just…I don’t…I don’t deal…well.”

“So you laugh?”

No one was here with him in the hospital room but he felt embarrassed and ashamed as hell. He always did when his panic mechanism was to laugh. Blake’s upbringing had made him a nervous wreck who didn’t know how to handle the real world. “I…” he started with a whisper as he stared down into his lap, “I’m sorry. I’m not good with this stuff. I panic.”

There was a sigh that let Blake know he was forgiven. “Where the hell have you been, man? Under a fucking rock? And Proko too. What the hell. He knew K before any of us.”

Proko. Sasha. His roommate. His best friend. The _first_ genuine friend he’d ever made.

“Um…” Blake began, his voice wanting to break into hysteric laughs again. The only reason he wasn’t yet was because there were tears in his eyes for Kavinsky stopping him. Blake may be a half prodigy but his emotions were incapable of processing at one time. “Sasha…he…”

Blake began to laugh again.

“Oh my God!” Jiang snapped and Blake knew that it wasn’t the time to point out that Jiang was an atheist. “Can you be serious for a second?”

That wasn’t fair.

He _was_ being serious. That was the problem.

Dropping his head into his hands while pressing the phone between his ear and shoulder, Blake whispered “I’m sorry. I just…I’d been…” _wondering why you all left me alone._ But they hadn’t, had they? They hadn’t know that Blake was suffering the weight of his best friend being in a coma because they’d been dealing with a second weight.

An even worse weight really.

“Sasha, he’s…Sasha’s…um…” Blake laughed again and the only thing that stop him from another fit was the fear of Jiang’s anger. “Sasha’s in the hospital.”

He knew that the phone was still open to his friends but from how quiet it was, it was enough to make him question if he’d been hung up on. “What?” Swan asked, the shock just oozing from his voice. “What do you mean? Is he hurt?”

The funny thing was that technically, there wasn’t a thing wrong with Sasha. Not. A. Thing. And yet, every single thing was.

_Blake watched the drag strip lighting up in flames, snaking their way here, there, and everywhere. It was like one giant bonfire. Logistically, the flood lights wouldn’t have been able to do this, even if they’d all fallen. Blake just didn’t understand what had happened._

_How was all this even possible?_

_None of his friends were within his sights no matter which way he looked. There was too much chaos; people running and screaming, abandoned cars littering the asphalt though more than one didn’t look like much of a car anymore, and of course, the flames._

_Where was everyone?_

_Trying not to panic, Blake scanned for all the cars they’d driven over. It wasn’t nice but he didn’t give a damn about anyone except his immediate crew. He’d never liked the other guys anyways. All the Mitsubishis just seemed to be sitting there._

_Well, as sitting as being smashed or flipped over could be._

_But there were two still intact._

_One was trying to drive to the edge of the strip out of harms way and the other had a lean figure atop-_

_Kavinsky._

_Okay, so one friend safe, that was good. Blake squinted at the car trying to maneuver through the flames, hoping to see who it was. The driver was tall but both Swan and Sasha were tall. Chuck was tall too. One would think with all the flames lighting up the place that Blake would easily be able to tell the skin color of the driver; it’d help him narrow his choices easily._

_Yeah, one would think._

_Before he could even tell who the driver was, everything changed in the matter of a second._

“He’s um…um…comatose,” Blake got out before he started laughing again. Dear Lord, they probably thought that he was insane. “Since the party. Doctors can’t find a thing wrong with him! Isn’t that funny?”

The silence that met his question didn’t seem to agree.

“Sasha’s in a coma and K is dead!” he exclaimed, laughter bubbling so hard from his lips that now he was pretty sure that his mother had driven him to insanity. “One hell of a party! Stuff for the history books!”

“Ten minutes,” came Swan’s steady voice, the only thing that seemed true in this insanity. “In ten minutes, go outside and Xia’ll be there to pick you up. Got it?”

Was he nuts? “But I’ll leave Sasha!” Although…he should be there for Kavinsky with his guys, shouldn’t he? Who was he supposed to pick? What was more important? They both were to him. “No one’s here for him!”

“Ten minutes, Blake. Sasha ain’t waking up anytime soon and I need you here, alright?”

But how could he possibly know that? For all they knew, Sasha would blink his eyes open and laugh at them for making this all a big deal. “But-”

“I need you here, okay?”

Swan needed him there. That was important, wasn’t it? Mrs. K was probably a mess and…well…Blake had never gotten to go to K’s house like everyone else had.

He was tired of being the chopped liver of the group.

“You need me?”

“Yes. I need you here. With me. Okay?”

Being needed was important. Especially in a situation like this. “Jiang’s not gonna pulp me, is he?”

“No, I won’t fucking pulp you,” Jiang snapped but it founded far like he’d moved away from the phone. Maybe the ten minutes were already ticking? “Ten minutes, Blake.”

“Okay,” he whispered before closing the phone and setting it in his lap. Now he’d lost _two_ friends. How could that happen so easily? So fast? Blake didn’t really believe in coincidences because his mother said only idiots do but…

This was all too coincidental, wasn’t it?

Sighing as he got to his feet because Jiang’s ten minutes were actually just one, Blake leaned over Sasha sleeping soundly in bed, his heart monitor the only promising thing in this room. He brushed back Sasha’s hair that he’d always hated, pausing and taking a moment to squint. “Huh…”

Did moles just disappear over time? Blake knew that they didn’t. Where was Sasha’s hairline mole that was also something that he hated?

Sasha had always hated a lot of things about himself.

Carefully turning Sasha’s head to the side, Blake checked behind his ear for the splatter of tiny tiny freckles that were there. Tiny tiny freckles that Sasha actually kind of liked because he said they took attention away from how big his ears were. Tiny tiny freckles that were like a spritzing-

That were supposed to be there.

“What the fuck?”

The door clicked open but Blake didn’t turn to look. He was busy in his confusion. Where the hell had his friend’s body personality gone? “Blake, was it?”

Spinning around at a somewhat familiar voice, Blake’s eyes went wide as he stared at none other than Viktor Borysov. Viktor Borysov who looked genuinely upset. “Um…yeah. Who…who called you?”

With a soft smile, Viktor made his way over and sat down in the seat Blake had vacated with a heavy sigh. He looked…normal. Not like the suit he was.

Just like the tired father he must be.

Blake couldn’t help but wonder how Kavinsky’s dad was taking his son’s death. Did he care?

“The hospital. He’s still a minor, you know.”

Right. Duh. Minor’s get their next of kin called on. “Sorry.”

“That’s okay, don’t apologize.”

“Have you…talked to the doctors? They wouldn’t tell me anything besides that, obviously, he’s in a coma.”

Slouching into his seat while crossing his arms, Viktor laughed. “That they can’t find a thing wrong with him.”

Yeah, Blake had heard that one too.

“That they just don’t understand why his body induced itself. Also, how in the hell he has tonsils.”

Sasha… “Sasha doesn’t have tonsils. They removed them when he was eight. He delighted in his week of ice cream and pudding. I remember that story distinctly.”

_“Both the best and the worst week of my life. Nico was a jealous dumbass so that’s all he’d eat for the week too even though he was fine.”_

“Exactly. They have the records for the surgery on file and yet, look into his throat and there they are. A pair of tonsils.”

What?

His phone rang and Blake yanked it out of his pocket, cursing upon seeing Jiang’s name. He was already supposed to be downstairs and now he was going to get chewed out for being late. “I’m sorry, I have to go but I’ll be back for sure.”

Viktor gave him a soft understanding smile. “Don’t worry, go on ahead.”

It took him less than a minute – that’s how fast he was running – to get all the way down to the lobby and dash out the hospital doors. He scanned the area for a bright yellow Supra but found nothing. A black Audi honked and out of the crack of the window, Jiang’s middle finger went up.

“Whose car is this?” Blake asked as he jumped in, barely even getting the chance to close the door before Jiang screeched out of the parking lot.

“Mrs. K. Her brother-in-law told me to take it because the Honda me and Finlay are using right now is a health hazard.”

Brother-in-law.

Also…Finlay.

So…should Blake call them by first names too?

“This is going to sound nuts,” Jiang began as he drove them through to town to the other side where the McMansions lived, “but I think Finlay’s hiding shit. Hiding something big and important. Like he knows what the fuck is up with Proko. And even Mr. K too.”

“I’m sorry, what?” He knew what was wrong? That meant they could fix Sasha, didn’t it? “And what’s wrong with K’s dad?”

Jiang snorted an ugly snort. “He’s in a fucking coma.”

What?

That’s it. Blake was officially calling this all not a coincidence.

Not. A. Coincidence.

Declared.

“Since when?”

“Ready for this?” Blake nodded, knowing already what Jiang was going to say. “Since the fucking party, man. How is that K, Mr. K, and Prokopenko all conk out at once, huh? You find that as weird as I do? And you know what’s weirder? Finlay. Finlay doesn’t even seem confused. He was surprised, sure, but he wasn’t fucking confused! How’s that make sense? Then he says he knows whatever I know. Yeah, bullshit.”

As Judge Judy always said, if it didn’t make sense, then that meant it wasn’t true. But Finlay didn’t typically lie…it wasn’t his style. He preferred to just straight up tell a person how it was. Tapping his lips with his fingers, Blake murmured “I’m…calling bullshit on that too…hey, how’s his mom?”

Jiang huffed as he turned down a street that led the way to the McMansion neighborhood. The neighborhood Blake’s parents lived in though his street was a few down that way. “It’s weird. Finlay says that everyone does grief differently but I feel like she’s not sad enough. Like, yeah, she cried a shit ton but they were these soft little cries and she made jokes about him and called him a bastard in this weird loving way and she just…” He sighed heavily, “I hope my mom cries more if I die.”

“You can’t compare someone’s grief to someone else’s,” Blake murmured as he eyed the huge house whose driveway they’d just pulled into. “Everyone processes things differently.”

“I know,” Jiang sighed, getting out with Blake following him to the front door, “but still, you know?”

Not really, but Blake let him have it however made him feel better. “I should’ve brought food,” he muttered as they walked in. This place was insane but not insane like the way his own mother had decorated their home. Insane in size and maybe…hollowness. Not that Blake’s house was filled with love and joy but at least it had some life to it. But maybe that was just because of the maids. “I forgot.”

“Why food?” Jiang asked as he led them to what he guessed to be the living room where other people sat. Swan waved from the floor where he sat with the huge monster dog who caught sight of Blake and jumped up, loping over. “Yo, man, why she like you better? I’ve seen her more than you!”

Holding his breath as Walnut sniffed his chest, Blake patted her head with stiff movements and said “Hi, Walnut. Um, you…should go back to Swan over there.”

“Coward.”

Ignoring Jiang, he carefully nudged Walnut’s big head away from his body and pointed at Swan. “Over there’s your running buddy. Go on. If you’re gonna eat someone, I promise he tastes better.”

“Is that knowledge from personal experience,” Jiang laughed, a cheeky smile on his face before he suddenly spun around on the couch to face Swan. “Yo, you never answered my question.” Swan raised a brow. “K’s a good kisser or not? Before you said that it wasn’t the time and then you said it again and I’m starting to think there’s never a time so let’s just go for it. I’m mean, his lips were always kind of nice to stare at but does he actually know how to use them?”

Kiss? “What do you mean ‘kisser?’”

The last of his crew stared at him with wide guilty eyes and Blake knew that yet again, he’d been left out of something. Typical. It hurt and the thing was, he didn’t get immune to the hurt, it just ended up hurting more because they should’ve known better by now. “How hard is it to just tell me things?”

“I think we’re about to get the chopped liver speech again,” Jiang whispered although it was so loud that it was obvious he wanted Blake to hear. “Prepare yourself.”

It was all a joke. It was always a stupid joke when he got upset. Why were his upset feelings any less valid than everyone else’s? Shockingly, the only one who ever kept him in a decent loop – decent because he didn’t actually tell him much but it was more than anyone else – was Kavinsky. Out of K, Jiang, and Swan, it was always K who stuck up for him.

And now he was dead.

Blake burst into laughter at his realization as though he hadn’t realized it before, his friends giving him the ‘we got a crazy’ look. It was okay, he didn’t mind. He was crazy. He was insane. That was all fine. He was stupid too. He was all of that and more because he hadn’t realized that his friend was screaming. Screaming and not one of them had been listening. What kind of friends were they?

“Skovman, you…alright?” Jiang said hesitantly, and it took Blake a moment through his laughter to realize that he was now standing over him. When had Blake dropped onto the floor? He didn’t even remember. When had Jiang walked all the way back over here? “Um…Finlay, do something, man. He’s freaking me the fuck out.”

Going from his knees onto his butt, Blake laughed into his hands even harder.

Joseph was dead and Sasha was in a coma and this was life.

Wasn’t that fun!

“Hey, Blake?” A figure crouched in front of him. Swan. It was Finlay. The one who’d apparently kissed Joseph. Blake didn’t even know that Finlay liked to kiss boys. He definitely hadn’t known Joseph had liked boys either.

What did he know?

Nothing.

There were only two truths that he knew of at this moment.

Sasha was in a coma.

Joseph was dead.

Blake laughed some more.


	5. Anka Simeonov

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [sambamart](http://www.sambamart.tumblr.com)
> 
> Sorry I took a bit. Enjoy!

The laughing idiot threw up.

The boy Xia jumped back, his face filled with disgust and yet pity but the other boy, Finlay, stayed in place, not even bothered. Gross being that it landed right on his feet. “Sorry,” Blake whispered, covering his face that had to be gross filled with tears, boogers, and vomit. “I’m sorry.”

“Nah, that’s nothing,” Finlay snorted, giving Blake’s hair a rub, making it look even worse than it’d looked when he’d walked in. “’Member that time Jiang had like four beers and then he barfed all over K’s backseat-”

“It was six,” Xia who must somehow be Jiang at the same time muttered, crossing his arms while looking annoyed. “I hold my alcohol way better than four, man. God.”

Finlay completely ignored him as he pet Blake’s head like people just went around petting each other. “-and then K beat the almighty shit out of him-”

“He’s just lucky I was drunk. I could’ve so won that fight.” Xia rubbed his hair with a grimace. “Bastard dragged me out by my hair. I mean, sure, no one wants anyone to throw up in their car but that was a little excessive. Damn drama queen.”

Blake began to giggle, almost hysterically but not quite back at that point as he wiped his face with the hem of his shirt and added “And then he made Jiang pay for the cleaning! Two days of severe deep cleaning-”

“Costed me three hundred damn bucks,” Xia grumbled. “Plus tax.”

“Your puke ain’t worse than that time,” Finlay continued, helping Blake to his feet and steering him further into the house to where she assumed might be a bathroom, “so don’t worry about it, alright?” Blake blonde head bobbed in a nod as Finlay pointed in an unseen direction. “Go wash up. I’ll worry about the mess. Gouda?”

Another giggle escaped Blake. “Totally gouda, man.”

“Good then, off you go.” Finlay waited until the door shut before peeling off his socks and making his way back over. He dumped the socks in the kitchen trash before snapping his fingers at Xia and saying “Go find the cleaning shit.”

Xia’s face contorted into his previous disgust. “C’mon, man, I ain’t cleaning that shit. Skov should clean up his own damn puke.”

“I didn’t ask you to do it,” Finlay snorted. “I just said grab me the stuff. And Skov’s busy crying and giggling into the toilet bowl. Leave him be.”

“Do you want help?” Andrey asked and it grossed her out to know end that he was willing to help clean some stranger’s throw up. But then, he was used to gross things with Josephine. At least she was his baby though. “I don’t mind.”

“Do you normally go around sopping up people’s throw up?” Anka interrupted, aiming her barbs at Finlay. She didn’t like him and she didn’t even know why she didn’t but she just knew that her heart wanted to bash him into smithereens. Was it jealousy? Jealousy of what though? It wasn’t like he was or had something that she wanted. “How very kind of you.”

“Nah, I usually go around beating the shit out of ‘em but I love your cousin too much to let a pile of vomit sit in the middle of his foyer because I know how much of a clean freak he was.” Accepting a towel, mop, and small bucket from Xia, he knelt down beside the pile of bile and added “Coming around here and being rude ain’t gonna get you nowhere, miss, lemme tell you. I’m polite because it was beaten into me to be but don’t push it. I don’t stand nor take shit from no one.”

“Not even from ‘your _love_?’” Anka asked, dragging out her words in such a mocking way that she hoped she hit a damn nerve. What did this boy think he knew about Joseph to be able to love him? Only Emilio would ever be able to comprehend Joseph as a whole. “Doesn’t sound like a healthy relationship.”

“Anka,” her father warned, an annoyed glint in his eyes telling her that she better damn well stop pushing. She didn’t understand why he’d take that boy’s side over hers. Finlay wasn’t better than her. Joseph was _her_ family, not Finlay’s.

Finlay laughed as he scrubbed the floor with his bare hands but it wasn’t a nice laugh. It was more like a ‘I’d beat the shit out of you if I could’ laugh. “Miss, I bet you’ve lived a very nice and have a certain perception on what you think is ‘healthy,’ but don’t come around throwing your perceptions at me.”

“Or at K,” Xia snorted as he munched a banana with pure angry aimed directly at her. Anka could literally feel the burn of his gaze laced with immeasurable amounts of hate. “Who the fuck do you think you are?”

What the hell was up with all this ‘K?’ Was that supposed to be Joseph? “His name is Joseph.”

“No shit, bitch.”

“Hey,” her father cut in, the warning only growing hotter as he not only gave Xia a glare, but her too as if she even deserved it. “Enough. Both of you. We’re not going to sit here and tear each other-”

“Yulian?”

Along with Anka, both her father and brother’s heads flew to the sound of the voice, faint and yet strong at the same time.

That woman was not her aunt. No way. That…skeletal…haunted-

Her father didn’t waste a second, already on his feet, limping to her as fast as he could as she ran down the stairs to him, throwing herself into his arms. Anka cringed, knowing her father barely had the strength in his leg to catch Timotei, not to catch her tétka. He didn’t seem to care though as their hug caused them to tumble onto the floor, her tétka sobbing into her father’s chest. From the way he kept twitching his leg, Anka knew he was in pain but from the way he was clutching her aunt like his life depended on it, she knew he didn’t give a crap about the pain.

A blonde head popped out, Blake coming around the corner and peeking at the spectacle with a careful eye before practically tiptoeing over to Finlay who finished from the floor and was now cleaning the towel in the kitchen sink. “Is that his mom?” came Blake’s soft words as he glued himself to Finlay’s side. He was a mess, obviously having been crying the whole time he’d disappeared. It sure as hell showed. Anka hoped he planned on changing his shirt. “Right? That’s her?”

What kind of friend was he if he didn’t even know what tétka looked like? “You don’t even know what she looks like?”

Blake balked, not appreciating being in the line of her fire. Scratching at his arm, he mumbled without meeting her eyes “Um, well, like, K-Joseph didn’t like when we came to his house so we usually met somewhere else or he’d come to us. This is my first time being here.” He narrowed his eyes and darted an evil glance at Finlay and Xia. “Not theirs, of course.”

“I swear to God,” Xia griped, spinning himself on the stool like tétka Vesela crying her eyes out was nothing of importance to pay attention to, “if you complain about the damn sleepover one more-”

“You guys could’ve invited!” Blake yelped as Finlay slapped him atop his head. “Ow!”

Finlay didn’t speak and instead reached across the island to where Xia sat there smiling. He must’ve thought he was safe so far away but Finlay didn’t spare him, pinching him across his wrists. “Motherfucker! Bitch-”

Pointing a stern finger at each one of them, Finlay said in a stern voice “Both of yous best damn well shut up and behave. Jesus fuck. You guys are supposed to stand with me, not give me headaches.”

“What are you?” Anka snorted with disdain. “Their daddy?”

“Miss,” Anka was really getting tired of that stupid word, “if I was going to be anyone’s daddy, it would’ve been Joseph’s.” Xia broke into a bout of laughter as Blake turned bright red from face down his neck. But that wasn’t as shocking as the burst of raucous laughter behind her was. “Sorry you had to hear that, Mrs. K.”

Craning her neck and watching her tétka get to her feet and help her father to his own, Anka found her tongue stuck in her mouth, unable to form words. On her way here, she’d rehearsed an entire speech thing to tell tétka Vesela. It sounded perfect too; she’d had hours to master it. But now that she was faced with her, faced with her and the grief written throughout her face and too thin body, Anka suddenly didn’t even know how to formulate a thought not to form a speech. Even just a word was too hard. How do you talk to someone who’s child just killed themselves? Was there even a proper way to go about it?

With that rude awakening, Anka remembered why they were here in the first place. Sure, it was simple to know that they were coming because Joseph had committed suicide. Joseph was dead, her brain understood that easily.

It’d just take seeing her tétka’s broken face for _Anka_ to understand.

Her cousin was dead. Her other stupid older brother was dead because…she didn’t even understand what the ‘because’ part was. Was there one? There had to be. Joseph thought things through, all the way down to the very last detail so he wouldn’t just leave it open ended like that, would he?

When she spoke next, the words that came out were nothing of what she expected them to be. Nor did she expect the harsh accusatory tone that laced every word with thorns. “How can you stand there and _laugh_? What’s wrong with you?”

Anka hated how pathetic she sounded, but she hated the pitying smile on her aunt’s face more. “Anka-”

“You realize he’s dead, right? Like, he’s not coming back tomorrow or the next day or-” she halted her words, refusing to allow her tears to make a choice in how she spoke. She did not cry in front of people. She did not. Anka especially didn’t cry in front of boys, let alone boys who were strangers and would judge her in a split second. “You’re disgusting.”

“Bitch, watch your mouth,” Xia snapped and Anka knew that if she was a boy or Xia had any less morals than the very few he’d presented so far, he would’ve hit her. It was in the way he held his body taunt, ready to spring if he could. If he would. “Don’t come around here-”

“It’s okay, Xia, thank you,” tétka Vesela said, interrupting his oncoming tirade as she walked over to the couch Andrey sat on, taking a seat beside him but having all her attention for Anka. She hated the attention and wished deep down that she could just…poke those damn searching eyes out. For a drug addict, she was too aware for Anka. A complete wreck but still aware. It definitely showed that she’d been barfing her heart out all morning. “What do you want me to do, Anka? Not laugh? Not smile? Be swallowed by the pain I feel that’s so severe it’s worse than when I found out someone blew my father’s brains out?”

Andrey grimaced, looking like he wished he could sink into the couch as more tears began filling his unending fountain of them.

“I could,” tétka Vesela allowed with a nod, “I could let it eat me alive and sit there and cry for months on end nonstop. I could scream, I could descend into sobbing fits, I could very rightly kill myself from the amount of pain I’m in.” Anka’s stomach turned with the thought while Andrey’s swollen eyes went wide with panic. “I have to bury my,” she paused, taking a shaky breath as she wiped her eyes, “my baby. My adorable little boy. I have to bury him because…because he couldn’t take it anymore and because I,” tétka Vesela’s eyes fluttered shut as she breathed in deep, “couldn’t seem to find the right way to help him.”

To Anka, being a junkie wasn’t what she considered ‘helping.’

“You can sit there and judge like the outsider you are all you like. But I’m not going to hole myself up and sob and rip my hair out when instead I could spend my time smiling and laughing and remembering the moments when Joseph was doing the same.” She leaned back into the couch, twisting around her braid which was the only thing of her that wasn’t a mess as she snorted “You and Xia can judge the way I grieve-”

“Hey, hey,” Xia mumbled, a blush tinging his high cheek bones as he looked in any direction but tétka Vesela.

“-but you and Xia will never be able to understand that the way I grieve is the way that works best for me and the only way that I know how to cope. It’s also the only way Joseph knows I grieve which means he’d want me to laugh at Finlay wanting to be his daddy.”

“Whoa, whoa,” Finlay cut in, looking even more embarrassed than Xia did a moment ago as he waved his hands around like that could stop any and all thoughts of such a thing. The funny thing was, Blake looked even more embarrassed than Finlay did. If Finlay was cherry red, Blake was the entire freaking sun. “Wait a sec there. I was just saying that as an example-”

“If that’s what would’ve worked for you guys,” tétka Vesela began, a smile on her face and yet now that Anka was truly paying attention, she could in fact still see the pain. The sorrow.

Suddenly, that smile didn’t disgust her as much as it did only moments before.

“No, no, it was just an example. Plus, he’s older than me-”

“I mean, hey, I’m not gonna judge people for what they like-”

“So it wouldn’t make sense anyways-”

“Ivo always did say he had a feeling Joseph would be the kinky sort just because he was always too damn curious for his own good.”

Tetíncho.

Anka couldn’t sit here for this. No. She couldn’t. She couldn’t see her aunt break in losing both the people she loved more than the world in the matter of a day. Anka was strong but she wasn’t that strong. She wasn’t that capable. It was like her knowing versus her feeling that Joseph was gone.

She couldn’t handle it.

Getting to her feet and making sure to ignore all inquiring minds, Anka made her way to the front door because that was the only way she knew to go. She didn’t know this place, this horrid house that wasn’t a home, but she knew where a front door led. Before someone could even finish ‘Anka, where’re you going??’ she was out the door and walking down the street so fast that her legs ached. Pushing them into a jog because at least then her legs would get the message, she kept going until she reached a stop sign. Left or right, she didn’t know which was better but she didn’t have a chance to decide before a hand came down on her shoulder, making her scream and whack whoever it was as hard as she could in the gut.

“Fuck,” Finlay wheezed, “you’ve got one hell of an arm, lemme tell you, miss.”

Great. The very last person she wanted to see. She disliked Xia because he seemed like an ass but she hated Finlay based on a principle she didn’t even know nor understand. “Leave me alone. And stop calling me ‘miss.’ It’s annoying.”

Coughing a few times before straightening to his full height which had to have an inch or two on Andrey, Finlay smiled at her as he dipped his head. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Ma’am makes me sound old.”

“That’s why I settled for miss.”

His smile was charming but she wasn’t going to fall for it. “Leave me alone. Seriously.”

The smile dipped but the charm was still there as Finlay asked “You don’t know the area. I wouldn’t want you to get lost.”

“Can you stop acting like the fake gentleman you aren’t?”

Now there was no smile or charm, just confusion as they stood there on the corner of the sidewalk at the empty intersection. Birds tweeted and a dragonfly flew by, the rest of the town not seeming to get the message that they were grieving right now. “Why don’t you like me?”

Perceptive one, wasn’t he. “I don’t…not like you,” Anka muttered, not meeting his big expressive eyes that seemed unhappy at the prospect of her dislike. Not quite distressed but definitely not happy. “I don’t know you to not like you.”

“Then?”

Anka didn’t know. She really didn’t. In her heart, she just knew that every time she looked at Finlay, something bothered her. A tick of mistrust or maybe it was that pinch of disbelief. The ounce of jealousy? One or all three? Probably even more that Anka just wasn’t catching on to. “I…I don’t know.”

Finlay nodded as if that actually proved as an answer. His eyes not only expressed his own emotions, but somehow, they made her feel like she was under a microscope. Like she could see herself reflected in there for her viewing. “Fair enough.” He glanced around at the empty area before nodding again in some random direction. Random to her at least. Maybe he knew where he wanted to go. “Walk with me?”

It was on the tip of her tongue to say no. How easy it would’ve been to. But she surprised herself when she nodded and walked with him, side by side, down the quiet road. “Your house around here?”

A snort erupted from Finlay. “Nope. I dorm at the school. So does Jiang, Skov, and Prokopenko. Skov’s family lives around here but he wanted the ‘rooming experience.’” Smiling and shaking his head, he added “He’s such a freaking dork, I swear to God.”

“Why the last names? It’s not as cool as you think.”

He laughed and somehow, Anka just knew that Joseph must’ve liked that laugh. There was something musical to it. “Aglionby culture, miss. You just gotta fit in sometimes, especially in somewhere like Aglionby. It’s a shit school that not even Dick Gansey likes. You just deal.”

She didn’t know a Dick Gansey but she took Finlay’s word for it. “Why’d you follow me?”

Giving her a quick glance, Finlay shrugged as he led them on, closer to where ‘town’ had to be because there was actually the occasional car here and there. “I could tell you were upset and my southern boy manners tell me I must always assist a lady when she’s upset. Also…I could tell from the beginning that you didn’t like me and this gave us the chance to talk one-on-one.”

“Did you really love Joseph?”

“I still love him, miss-”

“Just Anka, buddy.”

“Alright,” he laughed, steering her to the right so they could cross the street. “Anka, I still love him. No one told his stupid ass to go die on me.” If she hadn’t caught the tremor in his voice and taken the time to look at him, Anka probably would’ve yelled at him the way she’d yelled at her tétka. “You know…it…I think if he’d just outright rejected me, it would’ve been easier.”

“Easier than…?”

“Him wanting me but already having made up his mind that he was going to die. At the time, I just…thought maybe someone else caught his eye or something. He wasn’t ready yet to work through his issues. Turns out he just didn’t want to drag me down with him.” There was a suspicious sniffle before Finlay rubbed his eyes harshly and muttered “That rat bastard.”

From the amount of affection that came out just from those words, Anka suddenly had no doubt about Finlay’s love. “I think I know why I’m not sure if I like you or not,” she said with realization, halting in her tracks with Finlay doing the same while giving her a curious glance. “I didn’t trust you to love him. I…didn’t believe that you actually did and that you were some jackass coming around and…”

Anka wasn’t sure what made her realize it. Standing here with Finlay or just showing up in a town she didn’t know to people she’d never met. They were as strange to her as she was to them and yet she’d come in here with her preconceived notions and attitude and tried to own the damn place. But these people and these places weren’t strange to Joseph. This _was_ Joseph. For four years, this had been home and whether Anka liked it or not, he’d had a life and memories here that she could never touch. Never lord over or encroach on.

For four years, Joseph had a life full of places and people that Anka would never know nor be a part of. Yet she had come here and expected to just fit herself right in all over again. But whether she liked it or not, she had to come to terms with the fact that she hadn’t been in his life for a long time now. “You know,” Anka whispered, refusing to meet that inquisitive gaze, “I haven’t really cried yet. Just some…silent tears. A few deep breaths there and a little blowing my nose here. Do you think something’s wrong with me?”

“I think maybe, miss, you’ve been in denial.”

The ‘miss’ didn’t even register in her brain this time. Denial? Was that it? She’d cried but maybe coming here was what made her truly understand that she’d never see Joseph again. Here to this place that didn’t include her.

Her face was wet.

Wiping her cheeks and staring at the way her hands glistened from the tears she didn’t know she’d cried, Anka laughed “Will you look at that.”

“Miss, I make it a habit of hugging people who’re in need of a hug. May I?”

Anka blinked through her blurry vision up at the tall boy who had caught Joseph’s eye. He wouldn’t have been interested if he wasn’t worthwhile. Joseph was picky in all things and that had to include guys, didn’t it? “I think…I think I won’t mind.”

When she found herself enveloped in that strong embrace that was too hot for this blistering summer day, Anka let out the sobs she hadn’t known she’d been holding back.


	6. Andrey Simeonov

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [sambamart](http://www.sambamart.tumblr.com)
> 
> Sorry for such a delay! Enjoy!

One would think that after a month, they’d feel a little better. Maybe cry a little less. Ache not so much anymore.

One would think.

Well, those ones who would think such a stupid thing were dumbasses who had fantasy land stuck so far up there that they couldn’t find reality if it killed them by blunt force trauma.

Andrey was not one of those thinkers. Andrey was not one of those thinkers because Andrey was one hell of a crier. Always was, always would be. It was just how he was. He didn’t like it, if he was being honest, because he always seemed weaker than he was. Andrey considered himself strong; just as strong as his mother, his father, _and_ Anka.

Of course, no one ever believed him when he was busy sobbing his eyes out all the time.

He hated how he was viewed with pity. It was subtle because his family had learned that he despised it like nothing else, but it was still there in their faces. A soft sad glow in their eyes whenever he cried. They thought that just because his emotions were a little squishier than theirs that he was a fragile little soul.

He was not.

Walking into the garage to grab the supposed boxes that were supposed to be there, Andrey sighed and hit the light switch, illuminating the large garage with an almost sickly light. It was odd being in this home that he didn’t know. Andrey, like his father, had been here for a month now, minus the week in Jersey for the funeral, but it still felt wrong. It’d feel wrong even if Joseph was here because no matter what, this wasn’t Joseph’s home.

It was just a house.

“Amazing how even this garage looks like tetíncho’s been in it,” Andrey couldn’t help but laugh to himself as he took in the shelves with everything car galore. Tools, car required liquids, cleaners, anything one could imagine lined every shelf and even the floor, up against the wall. “I wish I knew cars.” He sighed, shaking his head. “I wish I’d told Joseph.”

He’d never told Joseph because he’d been worried that he’d be laughed at and yet now, all he wished he could do was tell Joseph to give him a lesson in car speak. Andrey had tried, even have gone to tetíncho’s warehouses with them before, but it was too complicated of a language for him to grasp. Now there was this gorgeous black something of a car just sitting here, almost mocking him.

Andrey wondered if Joseph had made it this way. Was it his handiwork? Probably, right? There was a car cover thrown off to the side like someone deliberately wanted the car to be exposed. If it’d been covered before, it meant it was precious. Now that it wasn’t, it was meant to be revealed. To show its beauty? But why?

There was a higher chance it was to catch someone’s attention. Particularly on that piece of paper under the windshield wiper.

In the month he’d been here, tétka had only been in three places before she’d gone back to Jersey. Her room, the living room, and the kitchen. His father had sworn that if she was in herself, she’d have already gone digging through Joseph’s room but as far as Andrey knew, she hadn’t even ventured that way. Hadn’t even given it a second glance. Either Andrey just hadn’t noticed or she really wasn’t as ready as his father said she’d be. Andrey was on the fence about all this really.

He was dying to see inside Joseph’s room.

Glancing at the car with a good hard glance of grand examination, Andrey narrowed his eyes on that piece of paper. If tétka hadn’t been looking around the house…if no one had been looking for anything… Maybe that enticing piece of paper was there before?

Meaning, just maybe, Joseph wanted someone to find it.

“Only one way to find out,” Andrey whispered as if there was even a reason to whisper. But it felt right so he stuck with it. In a house this huge, his voice always got lost anyways. Caught in the air but not carried like a home would usually do. It was even worse because it was just him and his father around now, cleaning out a monster of a house that had never been a proper home.

_Tétka Vesela glanced around the house, seemingly lost in her thoughts, before a soft smile grew on her face. Andrey didn’t know what she was thinking, was too afraid to even ask, but he was happy to see her smile. Even if it was a sad one, it was a smile that made her seem okay with leaving this place that held the last memories of her child._

_Of his cousin._

_Wiping his stupid tears, Andrey watched her laugh, shaking her head as she did, before holding out her arms for Finlay. It’d taken Andrey a couple days, but he found that he liked Joseph’s friends. Even Anka had seemed to find a groove with Finlay if not the other two._

_They wrapped each other in their arms with Finlay resting his head on tétka’s Vesela’s as she said “You come and visit me now, okay? You visit whenever you want. Call whenever too. I want to hear your voice.”_

_Finlay was the kinder one between him and Xia but it was Xia who was standing there bawling his eyes out. It made Andrey feel worlds better because he wasn’t the only softy of the group. Xia was a tough guy, liked to play the badass, but he was as squishy as Andrey was inside._

_It made Andrey feel real good._

_Blake was also crying but they’d learned over the past two weeks that Blake was a crier. No one was surprised by this of course. He wasn’t even the type of crier that Andrey was, he was more like one of those people who just…cried. Was sensitive in a way that Andrey wasn’t._

_“Anytime?” Finlay asked, his voice cracking on his tears as Walnut the mutated large freak circled around them, probably wanting in on the hug._

_“Anytime at all,” she replied, rubbing his back like he was the one that needed to be consoled. Separating their hug, she reached up and cupped his face. “Take good care of yourself and those two cry babies over there, got it?” Finlay laughed, wiping his eyes making Andrey wipe his own damn eyes, and nodded. “And next time I see Walnut, she better the size of Clifford because the love made him grow so damn big and all, so it should work on her too.”_

_“Mrs. K, don’t talk stupid bullshit,” Xia grumbled, harshly squeezing out his eyes as he walked over and threw himself on her, squeezing her tight. He hadn’t been invited for the hug but tétka Vesela was more than happy to squeeze him back, running her hand through his hair. “Fuck, I can visit too, can’t I? Or you playing favorites?”_

_She laughed. “You can visit whenever too. And you too,” she wiggled her fingers at Blake who was crying in a corner to come closer. “Come ‘ere. Group hug. Bring it all in.”_

He hadn’t seen the guys since he and his father had come back but then, they probably didn’t know that they’d come back. They’d all left that day, ready to take tétka and Joseph home to where they belonged. The funeral had been rough, Andrey having spent most of it bawling his eyes out in front of everyone in the middle of the damn cemetery. Tétka had cried of course. His mother. Anka, Ivet, bába. Even his father hadn’t been able to hold in his silent tears but, Jesus Lord, had Andrey gone at it.

Andrey swore that the only reason Asen hadn’t been able to hold in his sobs was because Andrey’s loud snotty crying. The man had literally had to crouch down and cover his face to cry. Anyone could say that it was mostly because of his pain but Andrey knew that a stoic mobster like that didn’t just break down.

It obviously didn’t help that they’d been standing across from each other so Asen had a damn front row view to Andrey and his inability to hold anything back.

Tétka Vesela had been staying with them at their house up to that point, not quite ready to go to her own home, so anyone who wanted to pass their condolences came there. Andrey was surprised with the amount of people who’d come, many of them men from the mob coming to pay their respects. They’d respected his dyádo like no one else and whether they liked to admit it or not, they respected tetíncho Ivo. And for the very few who had actually met Joseph, they respected him to heights even they probably hadn’t expected.

Walking over to the sleek black car Andrey now wished he owned, he slid out the paper from beneath the wiper and flipped it over.

 

_For Emilio,_

_I put all my love and hard work into it. Hope you like it_

_Love Joseph_

 

Andrey smiled and put the paper back where it belonged, squeezing out his eyes once he did. “Lucky bastard,” he laughed, sniffling in hopes that he could stop the onslaught of tears before he officially broke. Joseph had loved Emilio until the end. If that wasn’t beautiful, then nothing ever would be, would it?

_Flicking a little pebble off his knee where he sat alone under a tree, Andrey sighed. He didn’t understand why he wasn’t crying right now but he wasn’t going to question it either. All he wanted was some peace and quiet. He felt bad that he was sitting on or around some dead person but they’d understand. It was a cemetery after all._

_Glancing down just to make sure he wasn’t sitting on some relative or something – he was not – Andrey sighed again and stared out at Joseph’s tombstone. The word alone made him sick but somehow, visiting made the nausea go away. His mother had told him it was unhealthy visiting so often but Andrey had to go back tomorrow to Henrietta to pack his dead cousin’s house so…_

_It just felt right to make sure he came every day. He just knew that Joseph appreciated it._

_“I guess it was too much to hope I’d be alone, huh?”_

_Andrey froze before actually finding his ability to turn his head and stare._

“Did you get lost?” his father asked as Andrey and a stack of boxes came back into the house. “Got worried for a moment there. I don’t have the energy to get up and drag you in.”

“Drag me?”

“Thought maybe you were bawling on the floor or something.”

Of course. Andrey got no respect around here. Anywhere, really. “Joseph left Emilio a car.”

His father didn’t stop his careful wrapping of the dishes. Tétka Vesela had said she didn’t want them so they were going to drop them off at a thrift store. It was among many things that she didn’t want. The list of things she wanted versus what she didn’t was in favor of the latter. “Does that bother you?”

“Nah,” Andrey snorted in amusement, walking over to where his father sat on the floor in the living room surround by dishes and bubble wrap. “I’m not Anka, tatko. I’m happy that he remembered how much he loved him all the way until the end.” Taking a seat on the floor, he asked “Don’t you think tétka should’ve come back with us? To do his room? It feels wrong doing it for her.”

“I’m honestly so confused why she hasn’t done it already. It’s not like her at all.” He set a plate aside and grabbed another to wrap. “It’s strange. In a matter of a week, she and your mom cleaned Timotei’s house. Cleaned, packed, put away.”

Andrey sat down across from his father, leaning his back against the couch as he grabbed a pile of dishes and placed them beside him. He himself was a father now, had his own baby that he’d die for. Andrey would die for his parents, sure, but… “Don’t you think it’s different when it’s your child? I’m not supposed to live longer than my baby, y’know? Maybe that’s what’s getting to her.”

_“You sure you don’t want to come, tétka?” Andrey asked softly, sitting beside her on ‘her’ bed in the guest room. It’d been almost a week since Joseph’s funeral and while she was eating better, she was stuck in this deathly pallor that freaked him out. She’d come down to eat, smile a little for them, and laugh with Josephine before going back upstairs, sitting on her bed with a box clutched to her chest. “We can do his room together. You don’t have to do it by yourself.”_

_She didn’t meet his eyes but he caught a small smile on her face as she sat there, knees drawn up, wooden box clutched tight between them and her chest. “You always were a sweet one. I don’t know if he ever told you, but Joseph loved that about you.”_

_Dear God, if she started telling stories already, Andrey wouldn’t be able to survive. He wasn’t the guys; he’d lost his cousin, not his friend. He couldn’t handle stories yet. No way, no fucking how._

_“Don’t worry about me, sweetheart.” His aunt laughed, clutching the box tighter. “I got the important things already. You guys just box and bring home the rest.”_

_Was she implying that box? From what he’d seen, she hadn’t once tried to open it. How did she know that it was important? Maybe she got it all wrong. Maybe that box wasn’t even his and she was too distraught to pay attention. He shouldn’t doubt her, Andrey knew that but…what the hell was so important about that?_

Or maybe nothing was getting to her if she already had what she needed.

“We should’ve brought Anka to help us with all this,” Andrey grumbled, unimpressed by his sloppy wrapping in comparison to his father’s. Maybe it wasn’t the wrapping that was getting to him. Maybe it was the damn silent home that not too long ago had some more liveliness to it with the guys and Walnut around. Even tétka. “On second thought, she’d just piss me off somehow. Forget it.”

Anka had been getting on his nerves a lot. Ever since he and Ivet had told everyone about Josephine, she’d become insufferable. What sucked was that until Andrey finished school and got a damn good job, he wasn’t allowed to move out.

_“You’re my son but that doesn’t mean I’m going to support you for the rest of your life. You made a family, then you better start making a living.”_

He couldn’t help but wonder sometimes if Anka was still going to get all the Simeonov generational money. Somehow, Andrey didn’t think so. “Or you know what? We should invite the guys. They’d help.”

“Not a bad idea, actually,” his father replied, wrapping a mug. “I’m pretty sure I still have Xia’s number if you want to call and let them know we’re here.”

“Actually…” Andrey knew it was probably a stupid idea but he wanted to do some bad ideas once in his life too. Besides sex without a condom. Plus, if his father had said Finlay’s number, Andrey might have just called but he didn’t think he and Xia were that friendly to chat. It wasn’t that they didn’t get along, it was just that Finlay was a bit easier to get along with. “I think I’ll just go get them. They’re at the dorms, aren’t they? Can’t be too hard to find.”

_“Why did you fall for Joseph?”_

_Finlay spared him a glance before returning his focus to Walnut swimming in the pool. When Xia had first discovered there was a pool, he cursed Joseph to hell and back before crying from guilt because ‘that stupid bastard had to fucking die, didn’t he?’ All that brought was Finlay cursing Xia out because he’d apparently been here before and ‘no one told you not to look out the damn window.’ “Why not?”_

_Andrey shrugged, wondering if Finlay thought he was asking in hostile way like Anka probably had. It was just her jealous nature. “Dunno. Just curious. Joseph and Emilio knew each other for years so I never thought of asking why they loved each other. I figured it was just because they knew each other so well. Were comfortable with each other, you know?”_

_The younger boy blinked at him for a moment before saying “You knew Joseph’s gay.”_

_“I knew before he was even with Emilio.” Finlay nodded, staring out at Walnut bouncing up the pool stairs before shaking herself off. “So…”_

_“I don’t have an answer for you.”_

_“Oh.” He’d thought that they’d been getting along pretty well but maybe Andrey had been wrong. It was upsetting because he really wanted Finlay to like him._

_“It’s not that I don’t want to tell you,” Finlay clarified, holding up the towel and getting to his feet as Walnut loped over to them. “It’s that I really have no answer. I wanted to take care of him. I wanted to make him smile more. Laugh. And, well, he can kiss really good. That’s a bonus.”_

Andrey didn’t hesitate as he knocked on the dorm door that he’d been directed to. Hopefully Finlay was here because Andrey didn’t want to go searching for Xia. He couldn’t believe Joseph had gone to this school. It was the type of school they’d made fun of before. Andrey couldn’t even believe that he’d had brochures for this stupid place. He should’ve never given tétka this one.

He knocked again as the lock sounded and the door was opened. Andrey put on a smile for the stranger. Had he been directed to the wrong room? “Uh, I’m looking for Finlay?”

Somewhere inside, something landed with a _thud_ before the brown haired boy before him was nudged to the side and Finlay popped into view. “Andrey? What the hell are you doing here?” Opening the door wider, he dragged him in. “Is everything okay?”

Poor guy was concerned when all Andrey wanted to do was make him help pack. Andrey was a shameful being. “Uh, yeah, it’s fine. I actually was just hoping for a favor?” Finlay shrugged, relief overriding the worry that had been in his eyes. “Me and my dad are packing up the house and I was hoping for another pair of hands?”

“Oh, are you the cousin Finlay spoke of?”

Andrey glanced over at the brown haired kid. “Uh…I’m Joseph’s cousin if that’s what you mean.”

The brown haired boy nodded, a soft smile on his face. “I pray for him every day. May he finally find the peace he couldn’t find before.”

Fucking tears, goddammit. Andrey rubbed his eyes, he hoped, unsuspiciously. “Thank you. I really appreciate it.”

“And I’d be more than happy to help too, if you’d like. I’m John, by the way.”

He got to meet yet another person connected to Joseph in some way and Andrey couldn’t be happier. It made him feel like he was a part of his cousin’s life all over again. Getting in on what he’d missed all these years.

_“I think we should name her Lily,” Ivet murmured, rubbing her small belly where their child was safe and sound for the time being. Three more months and Andrey was officially going to be a dad._

_He wasn’t freaking out or anything._

_“What about,” Andrey began, hoping she wouldn’t get pissed at him for not immediately agreeing, “Liliya?” It was dumb, but somewhere in his head, Joseph would mock him for naming his child something in English. “It’s the same thing.”_

_“Maybe I just want Lily.” Her eyes were shooting daggers at him but Joseph’s mocking voice in his head would not go away. For some reason, it was more powerful than Ivet’s glares. “Does it have to be Bulgarian?”_

_Sliding onto the bed beside her and pressing a soft kiss on her forehead, Andrey replied “Well, no, but don’t you think it’d be nice?”_

_Ivet mulled this over, her tired face scrunching up in a way that Andrey thought was cute. “I mean, yeah, but it’s expected.”_

_It wasn’t worth getting so serious about but Joseph was mocking him to no- “Oh. I got one.” Ivet raised a brow at him. “What about Josephine?”_

_“Josephine.”_

_“Yeah!” Sitting up and looking at the beautiful woman who was soon to be his wife, Andrey pressed “Come on, think about it. It’s perfect and solves both our problems.”_

_“I hadn’t realized we had problems?”_

_“You’d prefer something more English. I want something connected to us and well…” How stupid would he sound saying that he really missed Joseph? Wanted him back so bad that he was willing to name his baby after him? He was a jerk sometimes, sure, but he was also a good guy. Smart. Oh so Bulgarian. It was a perfect solution. “C’mon, he’ll love it.”_

Joseph hadn’t loved the idea but he’d loved seeing and receiving anything with her in it. If Andrey didn’t send something every few days, Joseph would send a text wondering where his niece was that week.

If only they’d gotten to meet.

“Can…I borrow a bathroom?” Andrey laughed, uncaring about his crying anymore. It wasn’t like he and Finlay hadn’t seen each other cry before. His baby was never going to meet her namesake. Her uncle who really loved her, even if they’d never gotten to meet in person. One day, when Josephine was older, he’d get to tell her all about him. Joseph’s antics, how annoying he could be.

But also how amazing he’d been.

Sobbing into his hands as Finlay pushed him into the bathroom and shut the door for him, Andrey slid down the door and onto the floor.

Josephine was never going to meet her uncle. It was a minor thing in the grand scheme of things but to Andrey, it was the world. It hurt more than anything else had all these weeks.

A month may have passed but that didn’t mean Andrey wouldn’t be carrying this weight for years to come.


	7. Nikol Simeonov

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [sambamart](http://www.sambamart.tumblr.com)
> 
> And as promised, number two. Enjoy!

“One of these days,” Nikol began, making sure her tone was as gentle as possible, “you’re going to have to do more than just lug that box around.”

Vesela simply smiled though that smile didn’t quite reach her eyes, holding the box closer as she rested her back against the headboard. “One of these days, I will. But for now, I’m happy just holding it.”

She didn’t understand Vesela’s obsession with the box. It was literally her world right now and had been for the past three months. Vesela didn’t even bother opening any of the boxes that Andrey and Yulian had brought home. According to her, none of them were really of importance.

All that mattered was that wooden box.

Ignoring how wrong it felt to sit on Ivo’s side of the bed, Nikol rested her head on her sister’s shoulder. “As long as you’re happy.” She took Vesela’s hand in hers, caressing it softly. It didn’t feel as frail as it had a few weeks ago. Like she’d eaten a little more or put a little more effort into taking care of herself. Vesela wasn’t falling over in sobs and stopping all attempts at life but she also wasn’t exactly doing much of living either. “Did-”

“Don’t ask me if I ate. One of these days, I’ll punch you for it.”

Nikol laughed, a glimmer of hope blooming in her chest. She almost sounded like Vesela right then. “I just have to be sure. Can’t have you wasting away before my eyes, you know.”

Even though she kind of was already.

“Oh, don’t worry, I won’t,” she laughed, unfolding her knees and setting the box in her lap. Vesela ran a hand along the top, almost reverently. “Joseph wouldn’t forgive me if I did.”

If it’d been Nikol who’d lost one of her kids, no mind her _only_ child, she’d probably be dead on the floor. How Vesela found it in herself to just…be amazed her. She mentioned Joseph at least three or four times a day. Almost like she was afraid if she didn’t, he’d be forgotten. Or maybe it was her way of always having him close. Nikol didn’t know. But the point was, her sister was stronger than she could ever be.

“Neither would the boys, for that matter. Finlay would make sure to curse me in my grave if I did something stupid like that. Xia would probably piss on it.” Vesela broke into a goofy grin, one Nikol missed seeing, as she added “While crying. He’s such a softy, that one.”

She’d never met these boys but she’d heard quite a bit about them ever since Vesela had finally come back home. Nikol even hoped to meet them one day. They seemed so important to Vesela. Hell, Vesela seemed important to them. They called at least once a week.

Joseph, of course, had also come home just…

Nikol took a deep breath.

Tapping a finger on her sister’s wedding ring, Nikol’s gaze caught on Vesela’s dresser, filled with picture after picture. It seemed like she wanted to capture every memory she could, keeping them always in her mind, front and center, from Ivo to their father to Joseph.

_“The things I do for you,” Nikol sighed to herself as she washed a pot. She loved Vesela too much sometimes. Why else did she bother cooking for her bastard once a month? Every month, Ivo looked thinner than the last to the point where Nikol was convinced that the meal he ate at her house was the only one he had. He was too thin, pale, sickly even._

_He just wasn’t Ivo._

_Sure, he deserved it but still. It was hard seeing this man deteriorate when she’d known him for more than half their lives._

_Nikol regretted cooking for him today however. He’d be in a fouler mood than usual probably because it was the Fourth of July. They all loved this holiday and the problem with that was that they’d celebrated it as a family for years. Created beautiful memories._

_Beautiful memories that included Vesela and Joseph._

_If Nikol was on edge just thinking about them, she couldn’t ever possibly imagine what Ivo was going through. If these years had proved anything, it was that Ivo still loved them. Wanted them. She didn’t know if he said it aloud but she damn well knew that he thought it._

_The ring of the doorbell announced his arrival, causing Nikol to pray to God that the night would go fine. What was the worst that could happen anyways? Maybe he’d be a little extra pissy but it couldn’t be more than that, could it?_

_“Coming!” Timotei shouted, running as if it was Santa himself at the door. Ivo had never been terribly bad at being an uncle but for some reason, Timotei idolized him. And whatever caused Timotei’s idolization caused Josephine’s fascination. Her granddaughter adored Ivo almost as much as she did Yulian which was extremely offensive being that she liked both those stupid men more than she liked Nikol._

_Yes, she was jealous._

_“Tetíncho?” Timotei called through the door as he bounced. He must’ve received his answer because he squealed in delight and opened the door for Ivo. Throwing his arms up in the air, he exclaimed in pure delight “Hi!”_

_Ivo smiled down at Timotei and to a five year old, it seemed like a genuine one. To Nikol and probably Yulian if he’d been looking instead of being focused on his phone, it was a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Hello,” he replied, stooping down and kissing the top of Timotei’s head. “What happened to all your hair?”_

_Her youngest slapped his hands atop his buzzed head, frowning. “Albena put gum in my hair. Two gums, tetíncho. Two. We had to cut them out and take off all my hairs.”_

_“Jesus Christ, the horror,” Ivo snorted, sounding slightly amused. “You should stick gum in her hair and teach her a lesson, don’t you think?”_

_“No,” Nikol interrupted, taking out a serving plate from the cupboard, “he doesn’t think, thank you very much.”_

_Walking over and setting the cheesecake he brought with him on the island, Ivo shrugged and said “What? He’ll only be getting even. It’s fair that way.”_

_“Has anyone told you recently that you look terrible?”_

_He laughed, not even taking offense because he knew it was true. He had this sickly look to him, not to mention that it seemed like he hadn’t slept in months. Ivo used to be fit, muscled, a clean cut figure, but now he was just…old when he wasn’t even that old. He was younger than Yulian and Yulian looked better than he did. “That’s what happens when you’re dead, Nikol.”_

_“On the inside?”_

_“Nah, just dead,” Ivo laughed, walking over to the couches where Yulian and Andrey sat, with Josephine playing on the carpet beneath their feet. Bending down as she raised her arms up with an excited squeal, Ivo picked up his kind of granddaughter and sat down with her in his lap. “See, you’re the only one I come here for. And Timotei. Poor kid gets bullied by Albena.”_

_It was weird how cute of a picture he and her made. If Nikol could sneak a photo, she would. Vesela would die for it. That was of course, if she was aware enough for it in the first place._

_That was it. This year, Nikol was dragging them home whether they hated her for it or not. This mess that they were wasn’t going to be their lives anymore._

_“Boop,” Ivo said with a real smile, all the way from his mouth to his eyes, as he poked Josephine in the nose. She giggled and waited for his finger to come again, leaning her head forward with a one tooth smile. “Fuck, you’re fucking cute.”_

_“Language, tetíncho,” Andrey sighed because they’d gone through this a million times before. Settling himself deeper into the couch with a yawn, Andrey mumbled sleepily “You ever want grandkids?”_

_Nikol wanted to strangle that idiot. As if Ivo could get grandkids without Joseph. Was Andrey stupid or what?_

_Okay, sometimes, he kind of was._

_“Of course,” Ivo snorted, hugging Josephine to his chest as she set her head against him. They were so adorable that it was sickening. “I’ve been waiting for grandkids since Joseph was fourteen.”_

_They all stared with wide eyes at Ivo who in turn, stared back at them in confusion. He’d mentioned Joseph on his own accord? It was unnatural. Unheard of. Especially in front of them. And what about mentioning Joseph specifically at fourteen?_

_Fourteen was Joseph’s gay year._

_Well, not that Joseph wasn’t gay but Nikol knew what she meant._

_“What’s wrong with you people’s faces?”_

_Andrey shared a glance with Yulian before looking like he was bracing himself. Not good. Nikol didn’t want him to brace himself or get into any serious conversation. She just wanted this night to get done without any mishaps. “Would you prefer he surrogates or adopts?”_

_Oh for… “Andrey,” she snapped, so not willing to put up with whatever shit show might come up. “Enough.”_

_“What?” he asked, feigning ignorance with an irritated glow to his eyes. They all knew that she wasn’t comfortable with the whole gay thing. It wasn’t that she was a homophobe like Ivo, she just…didn’t get it. Nikol was fine if people wanted to love however they wanted. She just hadn’t wanted that type of love to be in her family. “He’s gay so it’s not like he can just make one.”_

_He was just pushing all the buttons today, wasn’t he? “Andrey-”_

_“Whichever,” Ivo interrupted with a shrug and a kiss to Josephine’s head. “A surrogate would be a little weird because it’s some random woman but…” he shrugged again._

_“What?” Nikol said in disbelief, setting down the ladle in her hand as she stared at this stranger sitting in her home. “What?” she repeated._

_“What.”_

_“What do you mean what?” Nikol snapped, angry and not even understanding why the hell she was angry. “What the hell did you just say?”_

_“That…either is fine.”_

_What the hell was going on here? “Who the hell are you?”_

_“Nikol,” Yulian began but there was no way she was letting him stop her. This all made no damn sense and she was getting to the bottom of it if it killed her._

_“Why’re you making this an issue?” Ivo asked, setting Josephine down and getting to his feet, un ugly glare challenging here to say more. “What the fuck-”_

_“So you’re going to stand there,” Nikol cut in, strangling the ladle and wishing it was Ivo’s neck, “and tell me that you’re totally fine with Joseph being gay?” The last three words tasted wrong on her tongue but she ignored it. “Can you stand there and say that to me?”_

_Lifting his chin in challenge with a dangerous glint to his eyes, Ivo said “Joseph’s gay and I’ve no problems with it. Go ahead, try to call me a liar, Nikol. It’ll only make you one.”_

_She couldn’t call him a liar because his face said he wasn’t. Ivo wasn’t lying._

_Ivo wasn’t lying._

_But instead of making her heart ache with happiness and ease, it merely twisted it more into pain as she snarled “You’re a fucking piece of shit, you know that?”_

_“Why? Because I accept my son? How’s that make any sense?”_

_“Nikol,” Yulian said again, this time his voice stronger and with a glare thrown her way. He wanted to keep the peace but Nikol didn’t care anymore._

_Let the night go to hell._

_“You’re standing here,” Nikol hissed, “acting all proud and saying that you accept him after everything that’s happened? After everything, you have the nerve to act like it’s all going to be okay? That these years never happened and all you have to do is go pick them up from the airport?”_

_“I never said everything could be erased-”_

_“My nephew snorts cocaine. My sister snorts cocaine. They’re a pair of fucking junkies because of you and you have the goddamn nerve to stand there and act like you have any place in their lives?”_

_Ivo’s jaw clenched so hard Nikol thought she could actually hear him grinding his teeth. “Bitch, I’d watch where you’re stepping.”_

_“Ivo,” Yulian sighed, already tired of both of them. “Guys, seriously-”_

_“Where I’m stepping,” Nikol said, striding over and jamming her finger into his chest, their glares meeting with neither backing down, “is my sister’s life. Her life-”_

_“Get your finger out of my face.”_

_Nikol jammed her finger in again. “It’s not in your face, it’s at your chest.” She poked him harder, “You fucked their lives up, Ivo. Fucked them up so bad-”_

_“You think I don’t know that!” Ivo snapped, strangling her wrist as he yanked it away from his chest. He only squeezed harder as he added “You think I don’t fucking know that I FUCKED UP!”_

_There was no circulation left in her hand and she was ready to give in and beg him to let go from how severe the sharp shooting pains radiating up her arm were. She’d never actually heard Ivo yell like that though she always knew his anger was a dangerous thing from day one. It’d always sit as a flame in his eyes, ready to break free from the prison he’d learned to keep it in. She had a feeling that the bars didn’t hold as well as they used to._

_And whether she liked to admit it or not, he scared her. She was afraid of this man who she suddenly felt like she not only didn’t know but somehow knew too well._

_“Ivo,” Yulian said carefully, suddenly materializing behind him with a hand held firmly on his shoulder. “Calm down and let go.” Her brother-in-law didn’t budge an inch but awareness lit up his eyes as they darted to where he still held her wrist in a firm hold. “You’re hurting her, you need to let. Go.”_

_Yulian was a mobster just as much as Ivo was but it wasn’t until he said that last line that Nikol truly understood it. She’d never once in her life seen that dangerous glint in his eyes as he squeezed Ivo’s shoulder harder, digging his nails in. “Let. Go.”_

_It took a moment longer but finally, Ivo’s grasp loosened, and it felt like the entire house let out the breath it’d been holding. Her wrist was on fire and her fingers were shaking but she said nothing of it and simply held her hand to her chest, suddenly unable, for the first time in her life, to meet his gaze. No one said anything as he walked out, closing the door softly behind himself._

_“Let me see,” Yulian murmured, limping even that one step to her and taking her hand in his. Walking without a cane was out of question for him anymore but regardless, he’d been ready to fight Ivo if he’d had to. He ran his fingers softly along the stripes of bruises already forming, “That fucking…”_

_“Didn’t even feel it,” she tried to laugh, her hand still shaking as her husband held it. She glanced behind herself at the door. Had he left or was he just cooling off? “I’ll be back.”_

_“Are you crazy?” Anka snapped, surprising Nikol because she couldn’t seem to remember when she’d come downstairs. “Leave that asshole be.”_

_“Hey,” Yulian said disapprovingly, his voice straining from the pain that must be going through his leg. “Respect.” Anka opened her mouth but he stopped her. “It doesn’t matter. He’s older than you and he’s your uncle. Respect.”_

_Anka said something else but Nikol was already tuning them out as she walked over to the door, completely ignoring them when they called out to her. Shutting the door behind herself and walking down the steps of her porch, she plopped down on the very last one where Ivo sat hunched over, staring at the cement. Somewhere, a firework popped, followed by another and another. It was like the world was ignorant to their pain._

_“I’m sorry.”_

_Ivo Kavinsky was very bad at apologizing and the fact that he was now meant he knew he’d fucked up bad. “It’s okay.”_

_“No, it’s not okay,” Ivo said softly, his voice even harder to catch because it was muffled from him hiding his face between his knees and chest. “I hurt you and I’m sorry. I’m fucking sorry, Nikol. I am.”_

_If his voice hadn’t cracked, she wouldn’t have believed him. “Do you regret it.”_

_He knew she didn’t mean her hand. “Yes. Every day.”_

_Nikol laughed, tired of what they’d all come to. Resting her head on his shoulder as another firework screamed somewhere nearby, she murmured “Then why can’t you fix it.”_

_“I want to,” he whispered, sounding as broken as he had when his mother had died. It took a lot to break Ivo, he’d already been through so much, but the people he loved were always more than enough to do it. “I will. I will. I’m going to. Things…they’ll never be the same but I’m going to make things better if it kills me.” Ivo laughed, shaking his head, jostling her own on his shoulder. “Fucking up already killed me. Maybe fixing everything will at least make me feel whole.”_

_Hearing him speak so metaphorically was odd because that just wasn’t his style but she let him have it. She liked hearing the pain and regret in his voice. “Sooner rather than later is always the best, you know.” A boom sounded off, someone having gotten their hands on the bigger illegal fireworks. “And apologies go a long way.”_

_Ivo was silent, barely even breathing, as he sat there beside her. She thought that he was considering her words but the silence dragged on for so long that she was convinced he’d fallen asleep on her. “You bastard,” she sighed, giving him an annoyed nudge. Her strength was nothing against his strong frame, merely causing him to sway._

_But she’d expected at least a reaction._

_“Ivo?”_

Ever since Vesela had made it back to Jersey, she’d only visited Ivo once.

Once.

For a woman who loved that man more than anyone besides Joseph, it was a shock that she hadn’t bothered going more than that. Nikol had originally thought that it was because she was too afraid to see him but she had a feeling that that wasn’t quite the problem. In fact, Vesela seemed convinced there wasn’t a problem at all. That she’d already ‘jumped over that hurdle.’

Obviously, her sister still wasn’t in her right mind. But then, who would be when they’d lost their child? Nikol hadn’t been in hers and Joseph wasn’t her baby.

_“This…news isn’t going to be easy to take,” Yulian began carefully, treading every step with a careful look around before he spoke. Nikol could see it in the way he tensed before every word as he glanced at all of them. He’d called an official ‘family meeting.’_

_They knew something was wrong just from that. They didn’t do family meetings._

_“If it’s about tetíncho,” Anka snorted, crossing her arms where she sat on the arm chair, “then I won’t be as upset as you think I will.”_

_Yulian sighed, rubbing his face harshly. She could feel the unease coming off him in waves beside her. “It’s not.”_

_“Then?”_

_“It’s…” he sighed heavily, unwilling or unable to pick his head up and look them in the eyes. It wasn’t natural; Yulian always looked them in the eyes no matter what news he was telling._

_It worried her._

_“It’s Joseph.”_

_They all shared panicked glances with one another before piercing Yulian with their gazes. “Joseph?” Nikol asked, trying not to let her fear crowd her when she was supposed to be the parent here. Andrey would start crying before he even knew what was going on if she started panicking. “What’s wrong? Is he sick?”_

_She knew Yulian wouldn’t be like this if he was just sick._

_“Well?” Ivet pressed, her worry making her seem irritated. “What’s wrong with him?”_

_Yulian nodded, though Nikol had no idea why, but he did. And continued to as he laughed “He’s…Jesus Christ…he’s um…” Wiping his eyes in a way that made Nikol think he was crying, Yulian said in a strangled voice “He’s dead.”_

_“Excuse me?” Nikol said, her heart pounding so loud that she could barely hear a thing over it._

_He swallowed a lump in his throat, visibly bobbing his Adam’s apple before picking up his head._

_The crying hadn’t been her imagination._

_“He’s dead. He committed suicide…last night.”_

_“That’s…that’s not…” her fear clogged her throat, not letting her get out another word without it being painful. “Yulian…that’s…” He couldn’t be serious, could he?_

_“I’m going to Virginia today,” Yulian continued, looking a little better like he’d gotten himself through the harder part. As if there still weren’t questions written all over their faces. Denial. Disbelief. “I booked a flight for me and Anka. We’ll-”_

_“What about me?”_

_They both stared at Andrey who was trying to keep it together like he’d ever been able to in his lifetime. It already looked like he’d been crying for years and yet somehow, his voice was as steady as it’d ever been. “You can’t just…just leave me.”_

_“Andrey-”_

_“I’m going with you guys. Even if I have to drive there, I’m…” he wiped his eyes and took a deep stuttering breath, a whimper escaping his mouth “I’m going.”_

_Everyone was talking so seriously as if this was really happening. As if Joseph really was dead. “C’mon,” Nikol laughed, though she knew she was on the edge of hysterics, “y-you aren’t serious, right? This…it’s not…”_

She’d never forget the way Yulian looked at her right then. Sorrow, pity, pain, guilt, and everything in between.

“You know,” Vesela said, her voice just above a whisper as she rested her head against Nikol’s, “I wonder a lot what would’ve happened if tate was around.”

“He would’ve made things better.”

“No,” Vesela replied causing Nikol to pick her head up and give her a look. Obviously he would’ve made things better. Duh. “Maybe things would’ve been better for me. We’d probably still be in Jersey, to be honest, but things wouldn’t have been better for Joseph. He would’ve just had two people who he loved hating him for loving. One was enough. Two would’ve broken him sooner.”


	8. Asen Kovachev

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [sambamart](http://www.sambamart.tumblr.com)
> 
>  
> 
> I know I know I'm laaaate. My grandma suddenly decided that she wanted to go back to Palestine (we're in Cali if y'all recall) so we had to find a tickets, pack her bags, get her going and yeah  
> But here we are!  
> I was going to do a Fourth special but obvs that didn't work out. Should I just do it late?
> 
> Enjoy this chapter the day after the sixth anniversary of our boy dying

Asen had a problem.

It was called getting stabbed.

His hospital room door suddenly flew open as Darina dashed in, her eyes wide as she slammed the door shut. “Mayday, tatko. Like total weewoo.”

Ever since she was five, Darina had been obsessed with sirens. He had no idea why but anytime something happened or was going to, she’d ‘weewoo’ her siren. Ten years later and nothing had changed except it was more habit than obsession. “Did you have to slam the door?” Drugs gave him severe headaches and door slamming didn’t help.

“No time for that!” she practically screeched, bouncing on her heels. “Yana said she saw bába downstairs!”

Oh, fuck him. She was going to chew him out as if he’d wanted to get stabbed. Then she’d start the ‘retire before you die’ speech. He knew his mother said it out of concern but the woman had no concept of how to deliver such concern. “Wait, where’s Yana? You guys were supposed to stay on _this_ floor.”

Darina’s eyes went wider, looking guilty as hell. “It’s Kristian’s fault.”

As if he believed that.

“You gotta focus here! Any second, bába’s going to come up all in here and start yelling and-” a knock cut her off, causing a flash of panic in her eyes. She knew her grandmother as much as Asen knew his mother. Clearing her throat, she opened the door with a smile which immediately fell when they noticed it was just Boyan.

Well, when he noticed. She didn’t know who he was.

“If I may?” Asen waved him in, wincing from the sharp pain radiating from his stomach. Lord, was it abused. Scar after scar and wound after wound. Boyan nodded at Darina before focusing on Asen, “Detective O’Brien-”

“Out,” his mother snapped, striding into his room and grabbing Boyan by the sleeve. “Now.”

Boyan’s confidence wavered but protocol was so engrained in him that his eyes darted to Asen for permission first. Sighing, Asen waved him off. “Tell O’Brien that I’m asleep and that I have nothing to say anyways. Get in touch with my father and let me know what’s happening at home base and escort,” he pointed at Darina “that delinquent-”

“Um, excuse me,” Darina muttered, rolling her eyes, “I ran all the way up here using the _stairs_ to weewoo for you.”

He would not laugh. “-to the cafeteria to retrieve the siblings she’s supposed to be watching and drag them all back here to sit their disobedient selves on the chairs outside the room.” He smiled at Boyan who looked exhausted already. “Got all that?”

“I’ll see them done, my lord,” Boyan replied with a nod. Asen still wasn’t used to the whole ‘my lord’ thing, even after a few months. It was strange being Lord Kovachev when that’d been his father all his life. He’d always just been plain old ‘Asen’ or when an advisor got pissed he was ‘door boy’ or ‘Kavinsky’s bitch.’ It varied. Asen was immune to the insults by now. “My little lady, after you.”

Darina grumbled something, arms crossed and annoyed before she backtracked and shot him a smile. “Can we each buy something from the cafeteria at least?”

Why she thought they got rewarded for bad behavior, he had no idea. “Goodbye.”

Boyan and Darina barely walked out before his mother gave him her scary ass glare. “Where’s your wife.”

Not the first question he expected, he had to admit. “Eva had that follow up, remember?” Asen wasn’t too sure why he was still being glared at. His baby had to go to a doctor’s appointment, what did she want them to do? “Nevena’ll come when she’s done. I mean, it’s not a-”

“She should’ve taken the kids with her. How exactly are you supposed to watch them while your stomach is gaping open?”

This wasn’t what he expected her to be angry about so he didn’t have any thought out responses. “Uh…well, Darina is old enough to watch herself, Yana, and Kristian. Lana’s with Maximillian-”

His mother’s mouth twisted into a grimace. “Because Maximillian can watch a three year old.”

Asen trusted Max to watch his kids more than he trusted his other brothers. At least Max had offered to take the kids – all of them even – unlike the six other assholes. Chris had hinted which counted for something but Asen knew that he didn’t really want to. And it wasn’t like his mother had offered either. They’d had a couple hours now to ask and no one had. “Needs must.”

“Asen,” his mother began with a tired sigh and the fact that she wasn’t fighting was creeping him out. The only problem she’d seen was Nevena not being here or taking the kids. “I think it’s time you retire.”

And here they went.

“You are older. Your body cannot handle these,” she waved a hand around before taking a deep breath and calming herself down, “it can’t handle these types of wounds anymore. You’re not young-”

He didn’t consider forty-one old but okay.

“-your body can’t heal like before. _I_ can’t deal with this anymore. I cannot handle the calls of knowing you are hurt, wondering if you’re okay, or…” Shutting her eyes and massaging the bridge of her sharp nose, she murmured “You have family you must live for-”

“It’s not like I’m going out and purposefully getting hurt, mayko.” What kind of idiot did that? “I understand what you’re saying, but I literally don’t know how to do anything else in my life. And honestly…” Lord, was he going to get yelled at for this one. Shrugging with a smile, hoping it was good enough to earn her favor, Asen said “I’m second in command now and I wouldn’t trade that for anything.”

_Yulian sat there unmoving in what used to be Ivo’s chair and Timotei’s before that. He looked exhausted, the last few months having taken a toll on him. He’d lost weight with his face having a ghastly pallor to it. “I’m going to announce my choice for second in command today at the meeting. You should prepare yourself for some serious backlash. It’ll probably get ugly for the both of us.”_

_Asen stared at Yulian, not quite comprehending. “You mean…you’re placing me?”_

_“Who the fuck else would I place?”_

_He was flattered beyond belief, excited even, because he was finally getting a proper title but…it wasn’t going to sit well with the advisors. Many of them, he knew, had been pressing their capabilities at Yulian, explaining why they’d be a great choice. The majority of the higher ups didn’t like Yulian but they still thought they could play him for a chump._

_Idiots._

_“I…” he blushed despite himself, tapping his fingers atop the table as he leaned in and asked tentatively “Do I get to be Lord Kovachev now?”_

He’d gotten the title he’d always wanted but it’d come with a price three months later when Petar had seemed to gather enough people to attempt a coup. The man had never liked Asen and despised Yulian to no end so he had gone and thought that he’d had a great idea.

Obviously, he hadn’t.

She stared at him like he was stupid, her mouth slightly open and her eyes giving him The Look. “A title is worth your life?”

“I wasn’t stabbed too bad…” Asen clamped his mouth shut as her eyes began to burn with anger. There was no talking himself out of this. “Mayko…”

“You don’t even know what to say,” she snorted, her heels clipping as she walked over to the chair and took a seat. She was on the cusp of seventy soon and yet she still wouldn’t let the high heels go. Asen was worried that one of these days, she’d trip and break something. “I’m disappointed. How is Lord Kovachev supposed to make it in the big leagues if he can’t even defend himself to his mother?”

It was an attempt at humor. A pretty sad attempt for anyone else but coming from her, it was amazing. It’d taken decades but his mother was finally mellowing. “Lord Kovachev can back talk in the big leagues. He can’t quite bring himself to do it with his mother.”

“Well, at least he has some manners,” his mother sighed, crossing a leg over the other, brushing off an invisible lint on her slacks as she did. “Now he just has to learn how to stop getting stabbed. What is this, the fifth time?”

Sixth but he’d leave her in her beliefs. She’d end up remembering later anyways.

A knock stopped any further conversation as Boyan – his current hospital guard – stuck his head in. “My lord, Lady Vesela is here to see you.”

Asen blinked stupidly at Boyan, having to have heard wrong. Lady Vesela? Asen made sure to check on her every couple of weeks for the fact that she was Ivo’s wife and Joseph’s mother but he’d never imagined her keeping tabs on him. “Let her in, of course.”

Lady Vesela walked in, a smile on her face and a huge bag in one hand with an iced drink in the other. The last time he’d seen her, she’d been looking better, having gained more weight and even having a glow to her skin. She hadn’t quite been herself, but she’d looked far better than she had at the funeral when he’d first seen her in years. Now, she seemed…healthy.

She seemed like the Lady Vesela of old.

“Hello,” she laughed, placing the drink on the table and the bag on the floor before coming and giving him a hug.

He honestly couldn’t remember the last time they’d hugged. Had they ever hugged? Wrapping his arms around her, still slightly confused, Asen replied “Hello, my lady-”

“Just Vesela,” Lady Vesela interrupted, breaking their hug and dragging over the far chair before taking a seat. “I’m not the lady of anything anymore. Don’t bother with it.” She smiled at his mother who was watching her with a…not so friendly gaze. They didn’t know each other outside of meeting a few times over the years but his mother blamed the entire Kavinsky family for his near fatal stabbing all those years ago. “My Lady Iskra, how are you?”

“Fine, thank you. To what do we owe this pleasure?”

Vesela had to feel the animosity but she just smiled it off as she turned back to Asen. “I always meant to congratulate you on the promotion, but I never got to it. Then I hear about this whole coup thing – those bastards – and that you were injured so two birds with one stone, y’know?”

“How’d you hear?” He didn’t think Yulian would have called his wife. If he’d tell her, it’d be once he went home for the night. Wasting time to call her at such a vital time would’ve been stupid.

“Oh, I’ve got my sources,” she laughed, reaching into the bag and pulling out a small box which she placed on the table once she rolled it over his bed. “If I recall correctly,” Vesela began, opening the box carefully, “you’re a big fan of scones, yeah?”

A very very big fan. He felt like a child staring through the candy shop window as he gazed at all the delicious looking scones in the box. “Oh very big.” He picked up what looked to be a blueberry scone and took a bite. Asen was going to pig out big time later. “Thank you.”

“And this iced coffee is also yours,” Vesela continued, pushing the huge cup forward. “Vanilla syrup with a shot of heavy cream.” He wasn’t going to ask how she knew such specifics and instead took a few sips while he munched on scones. “The doctor said you’ll be here at least a week?”

Okay, this was seriously creepy. “How’d you get a doctor to talk to you?”

“Yes, how did you?” his mother asked, far less friendly than he had.

Vesela spared a glance at his mother before smiling for him, giving him a huge wink. “I’m still a mob girl through and through, Asen. I know how to pull strings. My father and my husband taught me plenty.”

“Is there any change?” She’d been through so much the last six months that Asen was surprised she was even able to smile. How did one deal with their husband in a coma and their son dead? Joseph wasn’t even related to him and yet Asen had been broken for months now. Only recently was he able to even just _think_ about him and not get upset.

She laughed, shaking her head at him like he’d just asked the stupidest question in the world. “There’ll never be change. He’s as he is for the rest of our time. I’m over that. Have been for a while now.” Asen wasn’t sure if she was insane or serious. She seemed entirely unaffected that her husband was in a coma. “Ivo finally gets his peace after these past few years and Joseph found his. I’m on the road to mine.”

He was stuck between being severely concerned for her mental health and being proud that she’d come this far so fast. Taking another sip of coffee before it inevitably got taken away, Asen said “So you’re doing okay?”

“Oh, I could be better,” she answered with a carefree shrug as she slouched into the chair. “But I’m better than I was. Me and Joseph never believed in ‘okay’ because it’s such a stupid word to use but we did believe in ‘better’ because things always got better. And that’s where I’m at right now.” Sitting up, she leaned down, sticking her hands into the bag and pulling out a pile of books. “I want to give you these. There’s like…twenty more in the bag and I hope they’re to your taste.”

Books. His Lady had gotten him books.

And his mother said mobs don’t treat you well.

“Twenty is a bit excessive,” Asen laughed, sitting up as best he could to have a look at the pile she’d pulled out. Vesela set them on the table before leaning down to grab more. As she did, Asen picked a book from the pile and flipped it open. He was surprised when he found a post-it note inside, a scribble of words upon it. The handwriting seemed familiar but he couldn’t quite place it. “Thank you, I’m sure I’ll enjoy them,” he murmured as he took out the sticky note to read it.

Vesela came back up with another pile, setting it beside the other books. “Yeah, there’s going to be a lot of those in them. Joseph hated writing in his books so he’d use post-its to write notes.”

That was why the handwriting was so familiar.

It was Joseph’s.

She was giving him Joseph’s books.

“I hope you don’t mind that some are a little worse for wear from how much he read them-”

“My lady, I can’t…” he blinked down at the book in his hand, utter grief closing his throat. “My lady Vesela, I…”

“Just Vesela,” she reminded him with a soft voice. Her hand came into his blurry field of view as she set it upon his, mindful of the IV there. “Asen, there’s no one better to give them to because I know that you will not only read them but love them like he had.”

“You should keep these,” he whispered, unable to believe that she’d just so easily give up a part of her child. It seemed wrong for him to be holding them and not here. “You’re his mother-”

“And you were someone very special to him,” she cut in, her hand grasping his just a bit tighter as he shut the book. He was still unable to meet her eyes, those eyes that he knew could pierce through everything. She was stronger than he’d ever be. “I’m not going to go turn his room into a shrine or something. That isn’t understanding and it’s not peace, it would just be holding myself back. And I’m not going to allow that because that’s not what Joseph would’ve wanted.”

She sounded so sure of herself. So sure that she knew it all. And who knew? Maybe she did. Maybe she understood her son more than anyone else in the world. Asen glanced up at her before looking back down at the book, feeling the raised title letter by letter. “Do you…ever feel guilty?”

“Asen,” his mother hissed, reprimanding his rudeness in an instant.

“Do you?” Vesela asked, seemingly unminding of his question.

“Yes,” Asen answered, looking up into her eyes to see if he could guilt in them.

All he saw was pity.

Pity for _him._

“I knew that he had a drug problem, I knew that he was having a rough time, had even spoken to him once, and yet I didn’t do a thing. I didn’t because I was afraid to be stepping over boundaries that were not my own or that he’d grow upset with me.”

“There wasn’t a thing you could’ve done.”

“With all due respect, my lady-”

“Asen,” Vesela said placing both her hands on his, looking him firmly in the eyes, “Asen, unless Joseph was ready to help himself there wasn’t much anyone could’ve done. You can dig a person out of a hole as many times as you like, and sometimes it’ll seem like they’ve improved, but until they themselves are ready to start doing the climbing, they’re going to tumble right back down.”

He knew that. Had known that. In fact, Asen had seen it personally with Max. Max hadn’t been suicidal, God forbid, but he’d been struggling so badly with his anxiety that he had been physically and mentally crashing to the point where he had trouble just functioning. Asen had known it to an extent and had tried a million times to help him but it wasn’t until Max had come to him and said that he needed help that things began to make a difference.

It was just harder to accept when all the efforts ended up for nothing.

“Did…did you…” Asen began, nervous that he was treading into territory that wasn’t his as he stared back down at the book once again, “Did you find a note?”

“I have it, I just haven’t read it yet.”

If it’d been Asen, the note would’ve been in such a horrible state from how many times he would have read it over the past half year. “Why not?”

Vesela was quiet for a time before she replied “I don’t think I’m ready yet. I want to be able to read it with a clear head and open heart and I don’t think I’ve reached that stage. I’ve only recently started going through the boxes Yulian and Andrey brought back. Which reminds me…” He watched her pick up her purse and dig through it before raising up her prize with a smile. “This is also for you.”

“You’re not supposed to bring these things in hospitals,” he couldn’t help but laugh as he accepted an intricately beautiful butterfly knife. Flipping it open, Asen murmured “This is beautiful.”

“And it doesn’t beep for metal detectors,” Vesela said with a snap of her fingers and a finger gun. “Stab someone next time instead of getting stabbed, yeah?”

Didn’t beep for metal detectors?

_“Tadaa!” Joseph exclaimed, bouncing into Asen’s hospital room with a triumphant grin as he held up a small gift box. For the past week, Joseph had been bringing him gift after gift. Asen appreciated the gestures but where exactly did a thirteen year old get money to keep buying these things? He had a feeling it was all on Ivo’s dime and that just made him feel guilty because Asen had failed his job. “You’re gonna love this one.”_

_“I’ve loved them all so far,” Asen replied, rolling his eyes as he accepted the box. His entire abdomen ached with every movement but he was alive and that was what mattered. “But you seriously have to stop buying things.”_

_“Don’t be ridiculous,” Joseph snorted, pulling up a chair to Asen’s bed. “You saved my life and I can’t ever repay that equally. So we just settle it with materialistic things. Now hurry up and open it.”_

_Sighing as he unwrapped the long slim box, Asen took the lid off and stared in shock at what he was holding. “How the hell did you get past security with this? Are you out of your mind?”_

_“Security can’t detect it, Asen,” Joseph laughed, almost superiorly, a wide grin on his face. “It doesn’t get picked up by any machine, except maybe x-rays? I’m not too sure about that one.”_

_Asen blinked in confusion at the switchblade just sitting there in a fine silk cloth. “How is that even possible?”_

_“Don’t worry about the possible, my man,” Joseph said, reaching over and pulling out the knife for him, flicking open with an almost practiced ease. “Just make sure you do all the stabbing next time, okay?”_

“Sales of the imaginary,” Asen said softly, flipping the blade every which way, that sentence suddenly making complete sense and yet none at the same time. He glanced over at Vesela who had a considering look in her eyes, her head cocked to the side. “This is from Joseph.”

She examined him under that burning gaze for moment longer before a smile came on her face. Asen didn’t fully understand what was going on but he had this burning feeling in his chest that he’d just been let in on a huge secret. A secret that was as dangerous as it was important. He didn’t know what it was but he felt like he’d just been given a glimpse.

Vesela put the rest of the books on the table before getting to her feet, grabbing her purse. “Take care of my baby’s books, Asen.”

_He crouched there, still where he had been during the actual funeral. Asen wasn’t crying anymore but he wasn’t himself either. There was no one left if the silence was anything to go by. He couldn’t bring himself to pick his head up because then he’d be looking at a fresh mound of dirt and tombstone that had a name that it shouldn’t._

_Joseph was dead. Joseph was dead when he shouldn’t be but he was and Asen, at this moment, had no idea how to handle this._

_“Your ankles and knees are going to cry once you stand.”_

_Asen picked his head, blinking through his blurry eyes at Lady Vesela smiling down at him. “You’re already done crying?”_

_He hadn’t meant it in a mean way; more that he was just surprised. Thankfully, she seemed to understand him as she sat down with a laugh, her puffy face somehow managing to smile. “For right now, yeah. You?”_

_“I think I might need another go.” Seeing Andrey sob like hell hadn’t helped his grief at all. “Dunno yet.”_

_Rubbing her hand on his shoulder, Lady Vesela laughed again before gazing out at Joseph’s grave. “Don’t worry, my baby’s safe and taken care of now. Don’t let the tears swallow you.”_


	9. Raul Vidal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [sambamart](http://www.sambamart.tumblr.com)
> 
> So for those curious, Saffooo asked for a list with characters' ages and sexualites. I tried to include all the major characters so if I missed someone that you wanted to see, lemme know  
> [The List](https://sambamart.tumblr.com/post/186174869654/characters-sexualities-ages)
> 
> And enjoy! Not too many chapters left here. They're more like windows into everyone's lives mixed with flashbacks now because we're moving through the year
> 
> EDIT: So it seems I caused confusion with the car. My bad, I should've made it more clear. I'll also put this note on the next chapter for anyone who might miss it  
> So, as you'll find out in the coming chapter, Emilio actually hasn't received Joseph's car yet (it's the Miata). He doesn't even know it exists. Why? Well, in the beginning, Yulian brought it back and told Vesela but this was still a few months into Joseph's passing so she wasn't like...super there and worried about passing on a car. Then she forgot bc the car is parked at one of Ivo's warehouses so she doesn't see it to remember. Then she said she should get all the paperwork and stuff done for it before handing it over  
> Then she forgot  
> Come next chapter, Emilio will in fact receive the Miata. The boy is rich on cars and not much else  
> The car mentioned in this chapter is from Ivo. It's the Mustang he promised him way back when that Christmas when Emilio was eight.  
> Ivo doesn't break promises. He gave Emilio it the minute he turned 18, as promised. This will all happen in Emilio's story though, so that's when you'll see it
> 
> I hope I cleared that up!

“I hate this place.”

Emilio blinked at him before breaking into a laugh as he shut the door after letting Raul in. “C’mon, papa, it’s not that bad!”

Raul disagreed. Vehemently. “How is this crap better than your room? I don’t even charge you rent, mijo. I don’t make you pay bills either. Come on.” Emilio laughed again as Raul walked into his new home, his ‘apartment.’

Apartment, his ass.

It wasn’t the worst place he’d ever seen or been in but he didn’t exactly want his child living in something like this. Even Maria’s place that she’d had with Jesus had been nicer than this. The place she had now with her sisters was nicer than this by a million.

God, he couldn’t believe he only had Alondra left at home. Jesus.

“You really think it’s that bad?” Emilio asked as he gave Raul the smallest tour in the world. A living room that would probably only fit a couch and a tv and _maybe_ a slim coffee table that had two ways to go: an arched entryway to the kitchen where you could take two steps forward and two back or to the bedroom that would only fit a bed and nothing else. Maybe a nightstand depending on the furniture. “I mean, it’s tiny but it’s not dirty or anything.”

Raul opened a door in the kitchen that he thought was a pantry but turned out to be the bathroom. “Why’s the bathroom in the kitchen?” God, he’d suffocate in that bathroom. He swung the door open with a grimace. “You realize that if this door is open, you can’t access the fridge, right?”

“Hey, popman, I didn’t design the place. I just rent it.” Emilio stood beside him and swung the door open and closed like Raul had. “We’ll just have to give warning when we open the door so we don’t knock each other out or something.”

We. Yeah, Raul wasn’t too happy about that either. Really, he wasn’t happy about this whole new living arrangement. He’d just wished he’d told Emilio before he’d decided to move into a place with Marcus. No offense to them and all but their relationship was way too unstable for them to bother living together.

He should’ve said as much a month ago when they’d decided on such a stupid plan.

“It could be worse,” Raul reluctantly admitted because it could. At least they weren’t in the projects. The neighborhood here wasn’t amazing but it wasn’t too bad either. As long as Marcus walked with Emilio at night, everything would be fine. No one would jump that buff monster. “And it did come with appliances so at least there’s that.” He glanced around the empty place that, in total, couldn’t be bigger than half the size of Raul’s apartment.

Man, it was weird for him and Emilio to be separate. He wasn’t sure he’d be able to adjust so easy.

Walking back into the tiny living room, Raul glanced out one of the slim windows down onto the street. Getting furniture up three flights of stairs wasn’t going to be fun. “Me and mama will pay for the furniture,” Raul decided with a nod, turning back to Emilio leaning in the arched doorway. “You guys just worry about being able to afford this. Emilio opened his mouth but Raul stopped him. “This is at least what? Fifteen?”

“Fifteen-fifty,” Emilio corrected with a sigh because he knew he wasn’t going to win this. “Minus bills, of course. But-”

“Yes, I know you have a job. And I know you’ll get a part-time for the summer once this semester ends. I know Marcus works two and will start getting his military pay in a few months. Just let us worry about the furniture, okay? Give me some peace of mind in knowing you won’t go broke just getting things before you even have a chance at living here.”

“That’s mildly insulting.”

“I can live with mildly.”

Emilio sighed, rolling his eyes. He looked like he hadn’t been sleeping, his eyes sunken into a pit of dark circles. Raul wasn’t sure if it was because of him sleeping on the floor the past week or because it was April. “It’s not that I’m not appreciative-”

“You’re just all grown up at nineteen. Yeah, I get it.” Emilio smiled, an embarrassed blush tinging his cheeks because he knew Raul was right. “Trust me on this one. Take help when you can.”

Crossing his arms and yawning, Emilio replied “Well, if worse comes to worse, I could always sell my car. That’ll get me some very pretty pennies.”

Ah, yes.

The car.

A car that was worth fifty-five thousand dollars – not including whatever tax was put down – and had forced Emilio to not only learn how to drive but how to drive stick shift. A car that was all expense paid for too. Emilio didn’t pay his own insurance. Hell, he didn’t even pay for his own _gas_. He just charged the gas credit card he was given and it was all taken care of.

That was Ivo for you. He hadn’t bothered picking the base model, no, he’d gone and gotten a damn Shelby GT500 as if Emilio cared what type of Mustang he got. As if Emilio had even _remembered_ a promise to a child that’d been made years ago.

Well, that _had_ been Ivo for you. The man wasn’t awake to wipe his own ass not to pay Emilio’s bill. But someone still did, even after these past months that Ivo had been in a coma. They didn’t ask. They just watched the insurance and gas get paid for every month.

“Do you really want to though?”

“Hell no. But I can be practical if I have to.”

Raul nodded, glancing around the place once more. Claudia wasn’t going to like it. She’d make sure to let him and Emilio know in no uncertain terms how much she really didn’t like it. “Can I say something without you getting upset?”

“You can definitely try.”

“I think this was a bad idea.” Emilio stared at him, raising a brow and waiting for him to go on. Raul didn’t like how his son had learned how to stare like him. Except he had a Kavinsky’s influence in it too. It was worse. “I don’t think you and Marcus have a stable enough relationship-”

“I know.”

His tongue tied in his mouth. He knew? “Then…”

“If Marcus and I can’t figure out how to live together, I see no point in us continually trying to make this…mess of us work.”

“So you’ll dump him.”

“Pretty much. We’ve had one too many downs, papa. If we keep having them then maybe…maybe we’re just not for each other. Maybe we’re just not compatible. It happens. Living together will help me tell.” Biting his thumbnail, his eyes averted, Emilio mumbled “We have to be compatible in more ways than just sex to have a good relationship.”

Well, at least he had a brain in there somewhere. Wishing he had a couch to plop onto, Raul slid down the wall onto the hardwood floor. “Can you break up with him without a breakdown though?”

“Rude,” Emilio muttered, walking over and dropping down beside Raul. “I can, thank you.” Crossing his legs and dropping his chin into the upturned palm of his hand, Emilio frowned and added “Like I said, more downs than ups. But he seems really excited about us living together so…” he sighed, “I don’t know. I want it to work but I’m afraid it won’t. Especially when he gets deployed. We have three months to build a stable enough relationship to withstand months of deployment. Maybe even a year.”

“You don’t sound confident.” And why would he? They’d barely managed the months Marcus had been in South Carolina for training. Deployment was going to be hard on them, he knew it.

“Max says I’m a stopeless romantic.”

“And that is…”

“A stupid hopeless romantic.” Raul didn’t disagree. “He said this was a stupid idea.” He still didn’t disagree. “He said I should be able to tell already if we work or not, not to force myself into a possible terrible living situation.”

“Always said he was a smart one.”

Emilio sighed probably his hundredth sigh for the day, resting his head on Raul’s shoulder. “I really want us to work, papa,” he whispered, sounding tired enough to just give up. “But I don’t think we will. It’s both our faults but like…” Emilio sighed, ending it at that.

Wrapping an arm around his shoulders, Raul kissed the top his head while wishing he could help him with all this insecurity. He couldn’t, never could, but giving him comfort was the least Raul could do. “You’re overthinking this already.”

“Max says I always do that.”

Max talked too damn much sometimes.

“He wants to get me a housewarming gift. I was expecting him to say something stupid but he wants to get me a window AC. Three. One for each room. He said that if the bathroom had a window, he’d buy one for it too.”

Talked too much but a practical young man.

“Apparently if I want him to ever step foot in here, I better make sure he’s not going to boil like a fucking noodle during the summertime. His words.”

“Noodle?”

“He was craving spaghetti at the time,” Emilio laughed. “It must be a Bulgarian thing.”

_“Wait, wait!” Joseph said quickly, his hands flying between the seats to the front, waving around like he had a life to save. “Mr.Vidal, go back! I know what we should get for lunch!”_

_“Oh no,” Emilio laughed, his hand squeezing forward beside Joseph. “Something tells me it’s gonna be spaghetti again.”_

_Joseph threw Emilio a dirty glance. “You always want tacos.”_

_“Tacos are tacos, broseph. They’re just that amazing.”_

Another sigh escaped Emilio’s lips, his eyes shuttering closed. “You know, this is the first April since he left that I didn’t have a sleepless night? Can you believe it?”

_“Vidal,” Detective O’Brien called out, suddenly materializing beside Raul’s desk as if he had the power of teleportation. “Vidal, did you hear?”_

_“Depends what it was I was supposed to hear,” Raul yawned, spinning to the side so he could face O’Brien. Once Savelio noticed that he stole her chair again, he’d be back in the crappy one that was his but until then, his back and ass were going to enjoy themselves._

_O’Brien looked like a man stuck in daze. “Chatter’s been lighting up since last night. Something about Kavinsky but we’re still trying to piece together what exactly because we got two different ass stories.”_

_He wasn’t as interested as O’Brien thought. He was so sick of the name Kavinsky and the man tied to it. “You overestimate the power of my curiosity.”_

_His fellow detective grimaced as he set down a thin folder. Lowering his voice after glancing around, he murmured “I say piecing together for the official record because I haven’t made anything known yet. I wanted to talk to you personally first.”_

_Okay, now he could admit he was curious._

_From dazed, his face turned particularly ill, a severe frown upon his sadden face. “We have two stories because it’s about two different Kavinskys.”_

_Two? How could-_

_Unless…the second was Joseph._

_What could be about Joseph that would catch gang unit’s lines?_

_“At first, we just had the name Kavinsky so nobody thought to look past it because what other Kavinsky is there?” Taking a deep breath, O’Brien continued “But then his name hits our lines again. Crazy, right? I start digging, it was late so mostly everyone had already left, but uh… I started digging.”_

_“And?” Raul asked, leaning forward with the full intent of one needed to know everything. “What’re the theories and which one’s correct?”_

_Tapping his fingers on the folder in an unsteady beat, O’Brien avoided his gaze for a moment before finding whatever courage he’d seem to have been seeking, his blue eyes piercing Raul to the core. “Both. They’re about two Kavinskys. One’s in a coma,” he flipped the folder open and slid it closer to Raul, “and one’s dead.”_

“I think about it a lot,” Emilio continued, interlacing his arm with Raul’s. “Why that is. I think it’s because, in a way, he’d found peace.”

Raul wasn’t behind this whole ‘peace’ thing. Vesela had said the same thing and it seemed she’d been plaguing Emilio’s mind with it too.

“Sure, suicide isn’t what any of us wanted for him, but…as someone who knows what he had on his chest, I just… I don’t know if he’d have ever been able to breathe again knowing what I know now.” Leaning his back onto the wall and watching the ceiling fan spin, Emilio murmured “All I hope for is that he read my letter before he died. I think…I think it would’ve given him a little more peace knowing that I understood him. Believed him.” Silence passed for a good few minutes before Emilio added “Forgave him.”

The letter Emilio had received was the only secret Emilio had ever kept from him. Literally the only one. He hadn’t allowed him to look at it and Raul hadn’t taken offense. Why would he? His son was more open with him than any normal child was with their parents, so he was happy when Emilio told him things. If there was one reason Raul would ever want to know the contents of the letter, it was to know what had to be believed. What was it that Emilio needed to insist about believing?

“I think that because I was able to let all that off my chest after all these years, I was able to handle him…handle him being gone.”

_Raul opened his door with a heavy heart. He had no idea how he was supposed to tell everyone. He’d spent a good hour just sitting in his car, parked in front of a park, his heart shattered into pieces. Crying wasn’t his style, never had been, but he’d had a few tears as he sat there in the suffocating silence with his head against the steering wheel._

_“Hola, papa,” Alondra called, sitting upside down on the couch. “Bad day? You look it.”_

_“Hola,” he replied with a sigh. He needed to tell everyone but he wanted to tell Emilio first. And alone. Emilio deserved it. His eyes caught with his son’s as he came out of the hallway, looking better than he had in years. Something had changed within the last couple weeks but Raul had yet to find out what. “Mijo, we need to talk.”_

_Emilio’s eyes went wide, probably thinking he was in trouble for something. “Uh, okay. My…room?”_

_Yeah, that’d be the best. “After you.”_

_Everyone was giving them looks but Raul didn’t have time for looks. He needed to speak before he lost the speech he’d memorized. In his career, he’d told many people that they’d lost loved ones but he’d never had to tell a loved one that they’d lost someone._

_Walking into Emilio’s room and shutting the door, Raul took a seat beside him on the bed. “Mijo…” He shut his eyes and took a deep breath. “Emilio, I have something I need to tell you.”_

_Biting his nail, Emilio looked ready to shake it out of him. “Okay.”_

_He didn’t think that he could watch Emilio cry right now. Wrapping him in a hug and making sure Emilio’s face was pressed into his chest so he didn’t have to see, Raul pressed a kiss to the top of his head and whispered “Emilio, mijo…” Raul shut his eyes, taking in a ragged breath, “Mi amor, Joseph…Joseph committed suicide last night.”_

It was one thing to tell someone they’d lost someone to violence at the hands of others. It was something else entirely when it was violence of their own hands.

For three days, Emilio hadn’t left his room. For a week, he barely ate. For two months, he cried himself to sleep. But that had been it. It wasn’t to say that he wasn’t still grieving, but that Emilio had grown in ways Raul had never noticed before. Ways that, instead of making him shut down for months on end like Joseph leaving had, made him seek out Vesela and visit her every few days. Have dinner together. Go on walks, go shopping, it didn’t matter to them.

They just made sure to have each other to shoulder their grief.

“I think he’d like that, y’know?” Emilio said to the ceiling, his knees drawn up with his arms resting atop them. “Me being okay. I can sit here and I could talk about him for hours and feel okay. Before, he was still alive and I couldn’t even do that. I feel like…like I’ve grown up.” He glanced at Raul. “Does that sound silly?”

_“We can go all the way, you know,” Raul said as he and Emilio came to a halt, yards away from where the funeral was taking place. From here, it was too far to make out faces but it wasn’t too hard to guess who each person was. “Why so far away?”_

_Emilio tilted his head as he watched everyone, a careful considering look in his eyes. “I’m happy right here. I want me and Joseph to catch each other alone the first few times. We still have a few things that need to be said. Does that sound stupid?”_

_“Sorry I’m late” came a breathless voice behind them, both of them turning to find a disheveled Max red and sweaty in a pair of chinos and a button up that was miss-buttoned by one. Max noticed after catching his breath and laughed, rebuttoning his shirt. “Oops.”_

_Looking at Max like he was the strangest sight, Emilio asked “What’re you doing here?”_

_Max glanced up from his shirt for a quick second. “I know his funeral’s today and I thought maybe you might need an extra shoulder or two. Just in case.”_

_“Thank you,” Emilio said, particularly shocked. Marcus had offered to take the day off, Raul knew, but Emilio had refused saying it was fine. Once Marcus knew Max had come, it was going to get ugly. “I appreciate it.”_

The front door opened, Marcus walking in with a smile. “What’s good, Mr. V? How you been?” He shut the door, setting his backpack on the floor with a loud thump that echoed through the walls. “Don’t worry, a couch is on the list, I swear.”

“Oh, trust me,” Raul laughed from the floor, not bothering to get up. “It’s on the list. Me and Claudia are buying the furniture.”

Marcus’ face soured just a bit. He knew it was meant to be subtle, for Raul not to catch it, but he caught it easy. “That’s real nice of you guys but we can manage-”

“Save it,” Emilio snorted, waving him off. “I already tried but he’s insistent. How was your day?”

Plopping down onto the floor and unlacing his combat boots, Marcus replied “As nice as a four mile run can be. Signing up for classes this semester was a stupid idea. I already finished my training so I don’t need to do ROTC shit. I mean, it’s not hard compared to bootcamp but still.” Tossing his boots in the direction of the bedroom, he scooted the short distance to Emilio and slid himself between his upraised knees, catching their mouths together. “Hello, beautiful.”

“I don’t know about Mr. Beautiful here,” Raul snorted, getting to his feet and stretching, “but you need a goddamn shower before I’d ever kiss you.”

Both boys laughed. “I’d like to see you run 4K with a fifty pound bag on your back,” Marcus said as he stood and helped Emilio to his own feet. “Then tell me about smelling, thank you very much. You’re just jealous you’re not in that great of shape anymore.”

“Ohhhh,” Emilio laughed, “Hit him where it hurts.”

“You’re both dumbasses,” Raul muttered, giving each one a slap across the back of the head. It just made them laugh more, leading to Raul laughing himself. He didn’t like the whole idea of Joseph’s ‘peace’ thing for the price that it’d cost, but if it made Emilio finally find his own, especially in the month of April which only ever brought him down, then Raul could maybe find his own peace with the matter. It hurt more than anything, accepting that this was how their lives had played out, how Joseph’s had ended, but he knew that if Joseph saw Emilio now, laughing lighter than he had in years, he’d be happy.

He’d be happy that he was finally okay.

And Raul, in turn, could find a way to be happy with that.


	10. Emilio Vidal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [sambamart](http://www.sambamart.tumblr.com)
> 
> Enjoy! The second will be coming soon!
> 
> P.S. We're almost done! We get a Joseph lives AU after this
> 
> P.P.S. The note from last chapter for whoever missed it:  
> So, as you'll find out in the coming chapter, Emilio actually hasn't received Joseph's car yet (it's the Miata). He doesn't even know it exists. Why? Well, in the beginning, Yulian brought it back and told Vesela but this was still a few months into Joseph's passing so she wasn't like...super there and worried about passing on a car. Then she forgot bc the car is parked at one of Ivo's warehouses so she doesn't see it to remember. Then she said she should get all the paperwork and stuff done for it before handing it over  
> Then she forgot  
> Come next chapter, Emilio will in fact receive the Miata. The boy is rich on cars and not much else  
> The car mentioned in this chapter is from Ivo. It's the Mustang he promised him way back when that Christmas when Emilio was eight.  
> Ivo doesn't break promises. He gave Emilio it the minute he turned 18, as promised. This will all happen in Emilio's story though, so that's when you'll see it

Emilio had two problems.

One, it was fucking hot.

Two, it was fucking hot.

They were in fact the same problem and not even one of his main problems because he had many. It just so happened that it was what was on his mind as he walked to his corner market, which was in fact not on the corner of his block. He had to pass quite a few corners in this oppressive July heat to reach it.

He really did have two problems though. Actual problems. It was July fourth, which was one problem, and while to many this was Independence Day of their decent nation, it was also Joseph death day. Emilio had laid there in bed, waiting for the pain to hit and yet he’d found none. He’d wallowed for a good couple of hours, rolling from his side to Marcus’ side and yet not an emotion could be found.

It’d been a curious thing as he stared up at the ugly ceiling in the room he shared with his boyfriend. Was he broken? Was it because he’d really started his life now as an ‘adult’ with his own place, the boyfriend, the car, and the bills? Maybe he’d really moved on? Emilio didn’t think so, or at least, not to the point where he wouldn’t cry a little on Joseph’s anniversary.

Maybe Emilio was just broken. He’d used up too many emotions this year on his first year of college, Marcus, and Joseph. The Emilio emotions department was just all dried up from use. It could be possible, right?

With that thought in mind, he’d called Max.

_“I think I’m broken,” Emilio said the minute Max answered, unmoving from his bed and enjoying the blast of the window AC on his back. Window units were god-sent. Max and his ideas – most of them – were god-sent._

_“Oh,” Max yawned, probably awake only now. He gave a satisfied grunt as he sounded like he was stretching. “Broken like someone beat the shit out of you or do you mean like that time you had too much sex and-”_

_“Inside, dumbass,” he snorted, rolling his eyes at his closet. He should remember to always close it when he slept because waking up to that mess was not pretty. Emilio didn’t want a reminder to clean. “Mentally. My heart. My feelings.”_

_Max hummed before mumbling sleepily “Okay, see, that’s cool because then either I have to go beat up someone or I’d worry you’re cheating since your bae isn’t here to dick you out. I’d have to wonder who was doing it instead and then beat them up and then beat you up. It’s called the circle of life: beating version. Nice, huh.”_

_“No.”_

_Sighing like Emilio just didn’t get it, Max yawned again before he asked “So tell me about this brokenness. Broken like mental breakdown style or what?”_

_“Like I should be crying but I’m not.” A soft ‘ah’ came over the phone. “I just…feel fine. I shouldn’t feel fine. It seems wrong.”_

_“It’s called accepting.” It didn’t sound right, no matter how much Emilio had accepted of Joseph being gone. He should still be upset. Emilio should feel something akin to sorrow. “It’s been a year officially and you feel okay and that’s okay. You don’t have to wallow and smother in tears and whatever to show that you miss someone. Everyone’s different.”_

Emilio hadn’t been satisfied with the answer but he let it go and had gotten up to have breakfast.

Problem two was that his fridge was empty which was part of the greater problem of Emilio living by counting pennies. Marcus’ pay went towards the rent every month which, until he got his pay raise in a few more months, wasn’t even enough. Emilio put on top of it to finish the rent. He worked, sure, but minimum was all he got working in a bodega. And that part time he’d wanted wasn’t turning up so here he was. He had half a mind to go to the garage Marcus’ used to work out and beg to just sweep his floor for some cash under the table once in a while.

But until then – and even if it worked out – here Emilio was, staring at his empty fridge.

Technically, he was rich if he sold the Mustang. He just couldn’t bring himself to sell it. Emilio didn’t even drive it much because he was too afraid of his neighborhood. What if someone jacked it? He didn’t want it parked on the street. It was in Max’s garage, for God’s sake. Max’s _parents’_ garage because Max still lived at home.

Emilio just had nowhere to put the damn car.

Reaching the market with a tired sigh, Emilio went in as he pulled out his phone and opened the stream of texts that he was bombarded with.

_Come for lunch today_

_U have no choice_

_Ill kidnap u if I have to_

_Love u_

_See u at 2!_

He wanted to say what if he was busy but she knew that he was never busy unless he had work. It was a little weird having lunch on Joseph’s anniversary but if his mother was up to it then Emilio had to be too. _Ill be there_ , Emilio typed with a sigh as he grabbed a basket to throw food in. He didn’t like being an adult. It was so not cool. It caused him stress.

_U bet your ass u will_

By the time he accomplished some decent shopping that dropped the contents of his wallet to very little, went home, decided it was too late for breakfast, and cleaned the apartment, it was time for him to book his ass to the nicer side of the city.

Mrs. Kavinsky opened the door with a huge smile, her face bright before it dropped the minute she gave him a once over. “Tell me you didn’t walk in this heat.”

“I just won’t tell you then,” Emilio snorted, deciding that she didn’t get a hug for that. He’d planned on talking the bus but he’d counted his days until payday and what he might need until then and decided that he’d rather save himself the bus fare. “I was gonna bring something but it would’ve died in the heat with me.”

She pursed her lips, the only sign of her displeasure at him walking here before sighing and rolling her eyes, dragging him into a hug where they stood in the doorway. “How are you today?”

“I think I should be asking you that question.”

“Nah,” Mrs. Kavinsky replied, giving him one last squeeze before ushering him in. “Me and Joseph already had our breakfast together. We’re good. I even bothered to have coffee with Ivo’s coma ass.” She put her hands on her hips and held her head high, “I had a productive morning, thank you.”

_“He looks kinda dead,” Emilio muttered, squinting at Mr. Kavinsky as if squinting was going to do anything. He was already up close, literally right beside Mr. Kavinsky’s bed, so it wasn’t like squinting was going to change how he saw. “His chest is barely moving.”_

_Mrs. Kavinsky laughed as she dropped herself into a chair, turning her head to the side to stare at her husband. “Kinda dead.”_

_Biting at his thumbnail as he stood up straight, Emilio gave a quick glance in Mrs. Kavinsky’s direction before looking back at her husband. It was the first time after Joseph’s confession that Emilio had seen the man._

_He was one hell of a forgery._

_Emilio didn’t doubt a word Joseph had written. Too many coincidences had matched up which meant that they weren’t coincidences at all. They’d been the truth. Now the question was if Mrs. Kavinsky knew these truths too. “Pretty crazy how they both…went on the same day.”_

_“Very close to the same time too,” Mrs. Kavinsky murmured, still watching her husband. “Ivo outlasted Joseph by a half hour maybe. By my best educated guess, of course.”_

_The supernatural wasn’t anything Emilio had ever truly applied himself to learning – he had enough issues learning things as it was – but he wondered how much he could find out about dreams. Dreaming but not the typical scientific stuff. The Joseph stuff. Why had Mr. Kavinsky lasted for even that half hour? “You say outlasted like you saw it coming.” Mrs. Kavinsky stayed silent. “Did you?”_

_“Didn’t you?” she asked, turning her sharp eyes on him, the smile replaced by something almost powerful in just the way she examined him. Like she was daring him to say that he didn’t know a thing._

_Did that mean she knew?_

_He focused back on the not-dead man in a coma. Emilio didn’t know what the right answer was in this situation. Did he tell her or not? If he told and she didn’t know a thing…but then, if he lied and she found out that he lied… “Did Joseph ever tell you he wrote me a letter? Little more than a year ago. It took me months to be able to open it.”_

_“A little more than a year ago he asked me for envelopes the same day he told me everything that he’d been suffering from. I bet your letter was along those lines.”_

_So she knew. And she knew that he knew that she knew. She also knew that he knew. And if Emilio kept going in this direction, he’d get stuck in a tongue twister. “Is that why you can sit here so easily?” he asked, still focused on this body that was merely a representation of the man. “Sit here and be okay?”_

_Mrs. Kavinsky hadn’t lost two people in one night; she’d already lost her husband years ago. Come to terms with it by the time Joseph had died. “Maybe it is. I don’t…I wish when he’d told me…that’d I’d been able to tell him that I didn’t blame him. That it was Ivo’s fault for putting him in such a horrible position.”_

_“I told him.”_

_“Yeah,” she laughed, “I bet you did, sweetheart, I bet you did.”_

_“Our secret?”_

_“Our secret.”_

A smile stretched across his face at her cheeriness. She was just like the Mrs. Kavinsky of his childhood again. Smiles, laughs, good health, and bright eyes. Her face didn’t have a single sign that she’d even shed a tear today. It made Emilio feel a little better about his own so called acceptance. If Joseph’s own mother could spend the day being okay, visiting her son’s grave to have breakfast with him, then Emilio could be okay too.

He actually would’ve loved to have been invited to that breakfast.

“Well, that’s nice. Mine was spent grocery shopping and cleaning. Fun shit,” he said with a yawn, walking towards the kitchen to grab some water before something barked.

Something barked?

A huge dog came bounding over and even though Emilio knew it was happy and friendly from how fast its tail was wagging, he had scars imprinted in his leg as a reminder of what jaws like that did. And as much as his leg remembered, his brain did too, sending panic signals to the rest of his body. It wasn’t that he hadn’t seen dogs after that, or even hung out with them because they’d still gone to the warehouses, it was just that…Emilio liked some space.

This dog didn’t seem to have concept of space as it looked ready to stand on him but before it could, Mrs. Kavinsky stood in front of him making the dog stop in confusion. It wanted to greet the stranger, not this lady that it apparently already knew. “That’s, uh, a nice dog you got there,” he whispered, totally fine with hiding behind her. Emilio had no shame. “Very nice and…big.”

She laughed and grabbed the dog’s collar before scooting out of the way so they could be introduced. “Emilio, Walnut. Walnut, Emilio. Say hello to each other.”

Emilio stuck out a hand and gave the dog that was almost as big as him a stiff pat on the head. “Hi, Walnut. You need to learn better manners.”

“Hard when her owner ain’t got none,” a loud voice that sounded very distinctly Philly laughed. Emilio didn’t know anyone from Philly and he found it strange for one to be in Mrs. Kavinsky’s house. He found it even more strange when some Asian dude came in from the backyard, the apparent owner of the Philly voice. “Aw, fuck, you cute. Damn. You single? I’m still heartbroken but I could go for a fuck. I’d probably feel better too.”

What the fuck.

“Don’t listen to him. He has no manners,” said another guy, walking in behind him. He slapped the shorter Asian guy on the back of his head making the guy scowl. “That’s not how you greet people.”

“I told him he’s cute. Is that wrong?” He looked at Mrs. Kavinsky who was watching them with amusement making her eyes sparkle. “Mrs. K, is it wrong? Be honest. Don’t play favorites.”

“I don’t know if inviting him for sex was really the best way to go,” she laughed, wrapping an arm around Emilio’s shoulders while she still held Walnut’s collar in her other hand. “Emilio, that’s Xia and Finlay. Xia and Finlay, this is Emilio.”

The names were somehow familiar though Emilio was sure that he didn’t know these two. He’d remember meeting someone as handsome as Finlay. Or maybe he was handsome because Emilio was going through boyfriend withdrawal being that his was deployed and he hadn’t gotten to hear from him yet. “Uh, hi?”

Xia slung a thumb over his shoulder at Finlay, “He’s your dead ex’s ex, baby. Two hour relationship.”

“Pure gold,” Finlay nodded solemnly. “It was totally worth it.”

Oh.

He was _that_ Finlay.

_“You know,” Mrs. Kavinsky whispered, Emilio’s head in her lap as they sat in the guest/family room on the same bed from years ago, “I think that, if he’d been able to handle just a couple more months…he would’ve been able to find a new light in his tunnel.”_

_“Oh yeah?”_

_She ran her fingers through his hair. “I really think that there was a boy he liked.”_

_Emilio’s heart stopped. Sure, obviously he wanted Joseph to have been able to be himself and it was very obvious that Emilio had moved on himself but…he had to admit, he was a little jealous._

_But a happy jealous._

_Turning his head up to look at her, he asked “What made you think that?”_

_“There was this boy, Finlay, that Joseph used to play fake boyfriends with in front of me because it’d ‘make me happy.’”_

_Wow._

_“Now, I think Joseph wouldn’t have just let anyone play fake boyfriend, you know? There had to be something special about Finlay. And down the road…well, it turned out there was. Finlay’s words but I don’t doubt them. That boy’s a sweetheart.”_

_As long as he was a sweetheart. It didn’t kill Emilio’s jealousy though. As if his jealousy was even warranted. “I wish it’d worked out.”_

_She sighed, her chin in her palm. “Yeah, me too. I can’t wait for you to meet him.”_

Emilio had never thought anything of those words because, well, what dude who didn’t even have a relationship with the dead guy was going to keep tabs on the dead guy’s mother? He had just figured it wishful thinking on her part.

It seemed Emilio was way wrong.

“Nice to meet you guys,” Emilio said, still looped in Mrs. Kavinsky’s arm, the big ass dog monster beside them. “Mine was almost a year but hey, who’s counting?” Finlay smiled as Xia burst into laughter. They were dressed pretty nice, chinos and short sleeved button ups though Finlay’s was open, showing a white shirt underneath. Emilio felt sloppy in his now sticky with drying sweat tshirt and soccer pants. He’d just thought that he was coming for lunch, not the meeting of a lifetime. “I should’ve dressed nicer.”

“Nah,” Xia said as he walked over, giving Walnut a pat as he gave Emilio a syrupy glance before ending at his face with a huge smile. “You fine. You could of course gimme a strip show if you want?”

No wonder he was a friend of Joseph’s. They had the same type of humor. “From how broke I am, I may just become a stripper for tips. You tip good?”

“Oh, I tip.” He winked, “And top.”

“I’ll take your tips,” Emilio snorted, finishing his path to that water he wanted. “But I’m afraid my ass is taken by a very sexy man.” A sexy man that he still wasn’t sure if he was keeping. His dad and Max both said dump him but Emilio was a sucker and they all knew it. Especially Marcus.

“Aw, you shoulda brought him with you! I love meeting sexy men.”

“Sorry, he’s deployed somewhere in the ocean.” He didn’t even get to know where. Not knowing how Marcus was ate him alive day and night. “’Afraid he couldn’t make it to the date today.”

_Abuela watched him carefully as he packed a lunch pail full of food and drinks. Emilio didn’t have a proper basket so he just used an old pail instead. Same difference. “Date?”_

_“With Joseph,” Emilio answered as he zipped it shut. It’d be the first time they’d really be sitting together and Emilio liked to eat his sorrows. This would be perfect. “Hopefully no one’s there. I doubt there will be but if there is…I’ll just have to run them off.”_

_“Oh? And what gives you the right?” abuela laughed as Emilio slung the bag on his shoulder and went to the door, slipping on his shoes. “What makes you better?”_

_“Duh, abuela, I’m the ex-love. Ex-love’s get dibs.”_

_Ex-love hadn’t gotten dibs._

_“I guess it was too much to hope I’d be alone, huh?” Andrey stared at him like he was the strangest thing he’d ever seen. Walking over and taking a seat beside him, Emilio stared at Joseph’s tombstone, an ache in his chest making it hard to breathe. This wasn’t the first time he’d looked at it but this was the first time he’d come for an extended visit. “Did I grow ugly or something?”_

_Andrey laughed, the tension in the air shattered. “Nah, just…it’s been awhile, huh?”_

_“Yeah, definitely has. This is gonna sound selfish but-”_

_“I don’t mind,” Andrey said, getting to his feet and stretching with a satisfied groan. “I’m sure you guys need some privacy. It’s good to see you.”_

_In seconds, it wasn’t even like Andrey had been there, as if Emilio had just had a hallucination or something. And from how long he hadn’t seen or spoken to Andrey, it could’ve been. “Hi,” Emilio whispered, resting his chin on his upraised knees. “I…I’ve missed you. Too bad…” Emilio shut his eyes, clenching his jaw shut. He wouldn’t cry. There was no point to. This was supposed to be them and some lunch. A nice affair. “Too bad I couldn’t see you in person to say those words, huh?”_

_There was obviously no reply because he was talking to a dead person._

_Squeezing the life out of his eyes to just get the damn tears to leave him alone, Emilio focused on unpacking all the food he’d brought. He could manage that much. “Marcus wanted to come to meet you but I told him next time,” Emilio said, unwrapping a peanut butter sandwich. One for him and one for Joseph._

_Joseph’s of course was not just peanut butter. It had half banana slices and half grape jelly._

_Setting Joseph’s on the grass between them – Emilio and the tombstone really – Emilio took a bite of his and said “You know what’s funny? I’m sitting here and all I wish was that we got to talk about your dreams more. Magic. Who would’ve thought I’d make friends with the most interesting boy in the world? I mean, I always thought you were interesting but magic?” He took a huge bite, focused on chewing to calm his pounding heart, before he swallowed. “Magic, broseph. Goddamn. Only a freaking Kavinsky.”_

“Hey, how’d you like the car? Sick as fuck, right?”

Emilio stood there, sipping his water and staring at Xia. He couldn’t be talking about the Mustang, could he? He didn’t know about that.

“Oh crap,” Mrs. Kavinsky groaned, leaning on the island and covering her face. “I totally forgot. Forgot!”

“Forgot what?”

She whirled around, a sheepish smile on her face that made Emilio worry. It was the face she made when she didn’t want someone to get upset and she was aiming it at him, meaning whatever she forgot affected him. “I…may have…forgotten to give you something that…Joseph left you?”

Something that…she had to be fucking kidding him. Joseph left him something and she’d been holding onto it? Was she insane? He had a damn right to be pissed about it. Yet he just didn’t have it in him when Mrs. Kavinsky smiled at him like that. And she knew it too. Setting his water down before he dropped the cup from his disbelief at her stupidity, Emilio said “You’re shitting me.”

“Hey, hey, watch your nasty mouth,” Mrs. Kavinsky laughed as she walked in the direction of Mr. Kavinsky’s office, the light flicking on as she walked in. “It’s genuine forgetfulness! Hold on, I think…”

“Then you don’t know about the car?” Xia asked, hauling himself up to sit on the island as he produced a bag of M&M’s seemingly out of nowhere, opening it and popping a few in his mouth. “It’s real nice. Miata. 1995. Fully tricked. Worth a nice penny. Not an extreme penny but nice one.”

A car. Joseph had left him a car. What was with Kavinskys and cars? Who was Emilio kidding though? They were Kavinskys. They only spoke car. “Guess I’m rich in cars then.”

Xia didn’t seem to like his answer, Emilio could tell from the crease of his split brow. There was dissatisfaction in Emilio’s voice and the three of them knew it. It was just, well…Emilio had expected a bit more than a damn car. Had wanted a bit more than that. A goodbye maybe? A note with just a simple ‘see you on the other side’ or something.

Anything. Anything but a damn fucking car.

“Look,” Xia all but snapped, anger flashing in his eyes as he slid off the island and jabbed his finger into Emilio’s chest with every word, “I know that he put a lot of damn work into that car. Treasured it. At least be a little grateful, you short ass-”

“You cannot even begin,” Emilio hissed, grabbing Xia’s wrist in a tight hold that was capable of leaving bruises, “to comprehend the hell I have been through with and without him. The experiences we shared together.” Letting go and shoving Xia back a few steps where he bumped into the island, Emilio snapped “Don’t you fucking dare come around here and tell me how I should feel when I’ve been through so much damn feelings these past years that I’m fucking sick of it. I’m sick and tired of just…”

He was just tired.

Emilio may have let out that breath last year, but it seemed he still had some stuff sitting right on his chest. It was like a leech sucking him dry and yet like an elephant, sitting right smack dab on his lungs, stopping him from breathing. He’d thought that he’d let it all go but…well, he’d been hoping for more than a car.

Really, he _deserved_ more than a car. No matter how special that car was. Emilio was worth that much, wasn’t he?

A hand suddenly came into his view that he just realized was blurry. Blurry. “I found it,” Mrs. Kavinsky whispered, handing him an envelope. “It’s parked at one of Ivo’s warehouses. I can take you, if you’d like?”

Taking the envelope between shaky fingers, Emilio felt the shape of the key within. He watched as a drop of water plopped onto the envelope and only when a second and third fell did he realize it was from him.

Maybe he wasn’t broken after all.

“I’m worth more than a stupid car,” he whispered, his voice breaking on every word. He hated that he was crying, hated that two guys he didn’t know were judging him and that he couldn’t even hold it together for Joseph’s mom. If she wasn’t crying, what the hell gave him the right to? “I was happier with the thought that he left me nothing than with this.”

It was cruel, it was mean, because he knew Joseph had meant this to be something sweet, something special even, but Emilio would’ve loved a piece of paper with his stupid ugly handwriting on it than a tricked out car. He didn’t speak enough car to be able to reach Joseph on that wavelength. To hear his voice through the purr of the engine or his laugh in the roar. But had it been a paper with even just a sentence on it, Emilio would’ve been able to hear everything, down to the quietest whisper felt through the slant of a ‘u’. The smile in the curve of the ‘j’ when he wrote his name. Emilio could decipher that without any effort. Without the straining of his ears.

He didn’t know how to do that with a car.

The envelope grew wetter by the second, shaking with the tremors running through his whole body. He wanted Joseph back. He just wanted to hear his voice one last time. Just once. That wasn’t asking for much, was it? At least to know if he’d read his letter. Had he died in peace, knowing that Emilio still loved him? Forgave him for the pain he’d caused and believed every word he’d written? Had Emilio even been still important to him up to that point? What if he hadn’t mattered anymore?

“Emilio, sweetheart-”

“I think I need air,” he muttered, trying to laugh it off because he was on the verge of a breakdown and he just didn’t know what the hell else to do. Wiping his eyes after shoving the envelope in the pocket of his pants, Emilio repeated “I think…I think I need air. I can’t…”

He couldn’t breathe. His chest ached and it felt as bad as when his lungs had collapsed on him, stopping every ounce of airflow. Emilio rubbed his chest, knowing that it wouldn’t alleviate the pain but still foolishly trying, as he let out a laugh, more confused than ever on what the hell he was feeling.

A soft hand settled itself on his, caressing his fingers with a gentle touch that only a mother could manage. “Do you want to take your food to go with that air?”

Emilio laughed, this time for real, as he rested his head on her shoulder. Really, he was resting his face and making a mess of her shirt, but she didn’t seem to mind as she held him close. She wanted him to have lunch with her, to meet these guys who had been not only special to Joseph but seemed to be to her too. This was important to her and Emilio wasn’t going to let himself ruin it. “No…I…I just need a little air, I think. I’d love to have lunch with you.”

Without looking at her face, he knew she was pleased by his answer. Knew that it meant the world to her for him to be able to handle this. Mrs. Kavinsky wasn’t crying, didn’t look like she had all day, but suddenly Emilio understood that it didn’t mean she hadn’t suffered today. Last night. Wouldn’t tonight either.

She was just suffering a lot quieter than everyone else.

Taking a deep shaky breath, he squeezed the life out of her with the hope that she understood that he’d figured her out. Mrs. Kavinsky brushed her long fingers through his hair and pressed a kiss to his temple, the understanding having made it. “Go get that air of yours while I finish setting up.”

He nodded into her shoulder that wasn’t as bony as it’d been before trudging over to the backyard, plopping himself down onto the steps of the deck. Walnut followed him out, either sensing his distress or just wanting to go back outside, lying herself down beside him. Emilio blinked through his tears at her, giving her a pat on the head. It only occurred to him now that Peanut had never been mentioned and it hurt knowing that she must have passed away. “You know,” he murmured, rubbing Walnut’s huge head, “Peanut was a lazy ass but something tells me you’re the complete opposite. But then, Peanut was a cat. No sense of loyalty, that beast.”

“Can I sit with you?”

Who would’ve thought Joseph was into southern belles. He tapped the spot beside him, opposite of where Walnut had dropped herself. “Alabama?”

“Georgia,” Finlay corrected, taking a seat and giving him a small smile. “Atlanta. Not the nice side until I hit sixteen.”

“A peach. Joseph always liked peaches.” Finlay laughed and Emilio immediately knew for a fact that Joseph must have loved that laugh. He had a thing for them. “I must seem like an asshole, huh.”

Finlay leaned back on his arms, staring down at the last steps of the deck. “Jiang…he’s pretty sensitive. He tries to make it seem like he isn’t but he is. But as sensitive as he is, he’s not exactly the most…perceptive. He doesn’t get that it’s not really about the car.”

Emilio wasn’t sure how Xia became Jiang but he didn’t feel like asking.

“He had a picture of you above his bed.”

That only annoyed Emilio more. “He could’ve picked up the phone. I didn’t cut him off.”

“Sometimes, it’s a bit harder than we realize,” Finlay murmured, his gaze traveling around the backyard that was filled with memories only Emilio saw. “We make a mistake and we let time carry it. The problem is that once we want to fix it, we feel like maybe we’re just a little too late, so we wait longer and longer until it becomes too hard for us to handle.”

“Did you love him?”

“Yes.”

Nodding slowly, Emilio laid himself down, curling his head and shoulders up on Walnut’s big body. She didn’t seem to mind, actually seemed to enjoy his closeness if her tail was anything to go by, closing her eyes with a pleased content air around her. He thought he was over these feelings of despair. Of suffocation.

“I know why you’re so upset.”

“You mean besides it being his anniversary.”

“Besides that,” Finlay agreed, his long toned legs stretching out. He had nice muscles. Yummy looking muscles that gave Emilio thoughts he shouldn’t be having right now. Or at all because this man was not his boyfriend. “I’m sure Mrs. K gets it because she’s smart as fuck but I know Jiang doesn’t. To us, you know…we lost him, yeah, but we had him. You haven’t had him in years. We talked to him like an hour before he died and you…”

“Didn’t.”

“You haven’t gotten to hear his voice for such a long time-”

“I don’t need you to explain my feelings,” Emilio cut in, before sighing and shutting his eyes. He sounded like an insolent child who didn’t get their way. It made him feel like a complete jerk when this boy was trying to make him feel better. Show him that he understood. “I’m sorry.”

“Nah, man, don’t worry about it.” They were silent, sweating in the heat of July before Finlay murmured “I’ve been really wanting to meet you. I’m glad I got to.”

It was more than Emilio could say. He’d barely even remembered who Finlay was. Did that make him an even bigger jerk? Meeting Finlay had never even registered in his mind. “You ever get that feeling that you’re just exhausted but you keep going because what the fuck else choice do you have? You just…keep going because the world promised things would get better. And a lot of times…either the world is proved a liar or you just have to have faith and keep going, even when better is taking such a long time.” Wiping his eyes and burying his face in his shirt because he didn’t want Finlay to see him crying again and he also didn’t want to get boogers in Walnut’s fur, he laughed “Joseph always was a bit impatient.”

Would things have been better if he’d kept waiting? Maybe he just needed a few more months to feel better. A year. Graduating. Getting out of that town. Seeing a future. Emilio was tired, exhausted even because his life wasn’t going the way he’d expected either. He obviously hadn’t gone through what Joseph had but…he didn’t know. He couldn’t even track his thoughts anymore.

“I haven’t felt this low in a while,” Emilio sighed. “I woke up this morning thinking I was broken because I couldn’t seem to feel upset for Joseph. Now I know it was just building itself up to break me.”

“But it didn’t.” Emilio laughed. “It didn’t,” Finlay repeated, suddenly all up in Emilio’s face. It was…mildly disturbing how close he was. “You’re here. You’re here and we’re gonna have lunch and we’re gonna go pick up your car because,” Finlay blushed, a smile coming on his face, “well, I really want to see all the cars I’ve heard about.”

Emilio couldn’t help but roll his eyes. “Wow.”

Finlay laughed as he sat up straight and pulled Emilio up right. “Look, man, ain’t no shit breaking you, alright? You’re tougher than that. I know that.” He poked Emilio in the arm with each word. “You. Are. Tough. And super special.”

Special. Emilio didn’t feel very special with just a car. Yes, he was still going to be bitter about it because- “Special,” Emilio whispered, his heart picking up speed to the point where if he’d been in his right mind, he’d actually worry about cardiac problems.

_“This is the almighty special box,” Joseph said proudly, setting it on his bed beside Emilio. “Cool?”_

_Emilio picked up the wooden box, ready to explain to his friend that this was in fact just a wooden box. That was until he realized that this wasn’t a box at all. Boxes opened. This thing had a line where one would think it opened but Emilio couldn’t pry it open. “Huh…”_

_Joseph was looking particularly proud as he took the box and opened it with ease. “Tadaa!”_

_“How…”_

_“It only opens for me,” Joseph explained, his eyes glittering as bright as when they’d officially declared themselves as friends last year. “Neat or what? All my most important things go in here. All my secret stuff too. My special stuff.”_

Joseph couldn’t have changed that much. No way.

Scrambling to his feet, Emilio rushed into the house with Walnut and a startled Finlay on his feet, Mrs. Kavinsky and Xia staring at him from the kitchen with wide eyes. “The box,” Emilio said, rushing up to her. She had to know where it was. Joseph hadn’t just left him a car. Emilio was too special for that. Too important. “The box, Mrs. Kavinsky. Where is it?”

“Box?” she asked, setting down her wooden spoon as she clicked off the stove. His stomach rumbled, wanting the deliciousness he smelled but now wasn’t the time. “What’re we talking about?”

“The box! The wood one!” It was subtle as hell but Emilio saw understanding flick on in her eyes. “Joseph’s box, where is it?”

He’d left him more than a car; Emilio just hadn’t been looking. Joseph wouldn’t have just left it out in the open for anyone to find. He wouldn’t have trusted to do that. Whatever he’d left for Emilio, it was in that box, Emilio knew it for a fact.

Whatever it was that was waiting for him, Emilio knew that it was going to help him breathe easy for the rest of his life.


	11. Vesela Kavinsky

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [sambamart](http://www.sambamart.tumblr.com)
> 
> My apologies for all these delays. A family friend died in a motorcycle accident recently and its been hectic and a bit rough. But I have lots of chapters for y'all! 
> 
> FOUR (including this one)
> 
> Enjoy!

It’d never occurred to her and now she felt horrible. She felt horrible because Emilio had been having a rough time, even if he hadn’t realized it, and she might have been holding his breath of relief this whole time. Vesela knew that within that box was her letter but it’d never occurred to her that there had to be something for Emilio in there too.

Now that she thought about it, she should have known. This was Joseph they were talking about.

Taking out the box from under Ivo’s pillow – don’t ask – Vesela set it on her bed with four sets of eyes watching her. She hadn’t been ready to open the box, was actually waiting for tonight because it’d be exactly a year, but she wasn’t going to make Emilio wait any longer. It was cruel. She’d made the poor thing suffer this whole time without even intending it. “Here he is! Grand secret holder that he may be.”

Emilio reached out immediately, holding it up and looking it over like he was making sure that it was what he’d been asking for. He seemed satisfied if the small little smile that grew on his face was anything to go by. Something inside the box clacked against the wood as he set it back on the bed, that smile still on his face.

“So…” Xia said, scratching at his choppy hair, the ugliest haircut she’d ever seen in her life. She didn’t even think it qualified as a haircut; it was more like he’d had to chop it because of something. “Are we just gonna look at it or…?”

“When you open it,” Emilio began, smiling at her and looking at peace compared to his earlier tears, “lemme know.”

“I can open it now,” Vesela replied, amazed that he wasn’t begging her to just damn open it. But this was Emilio and Emilio had a habit of making sure the people around him were fine first before himself. It was a good trait but it’d also gotten him stuck in bad situations before. “If you’d like.”

He stared at her in surprise, his dark eyes going wide before he laughed, stuffing his hands in the pockets of his pants. “When you’re ready, I’m ready. Don’t rush yourself. We both know that your letter is in there too. So until you’re ready to hold it in your hands, I can wait.”

Xia nudged Finlay in the arm. “Did you ever read yours? Do I get deets?”

“Yes, and no, it’s not your fuck ass business,” Finlay snorted, glancing around the room, his eyes zeroing in on her dresser where their life was framed in pictures. Either he didn’t feel or was ignoring Emilio’s burning gaze that could light wildfires. “Can I look at those?”

Vesela was about to say yes when Emilio asked “You got a letter from Joseph?”

Finlay turned his head slowly, as though he was considering how to answer such a loaded question. He nodded slowly as he took in Emilio’s fiery eyes. “Yeah, he gave it to me-”

“You were trying to make me feel better about the bullshit car he left me, when you got an actual letter?” Emilio snapped, his body strung tight like he was ready to lash out at any second. She knew he wouldn’t, knew that it wasn’t that he was jealous of the letter per se. That wasn’t how Emilio worked. “A letter that he gave to you in person apparently.”

“Yo, man, they liked each other,” Xia said, his face daring Emilio to try and trample on that. Crossing his arms, he added “Don’t be a jealous fuck.”

“It’s not about jealousy,” Emilio replied, his dark gaze flicking back and forth between the two boys. “I have no reason to be jealous because I know what my place was in his heart. I know that no matter what, he and I have these ugly holes we carved into each other that can’t be filled no matter how hard we try. We can attempt moving on, can even be successful at it, but that doesn’t make the hollow ache disappear.”

When Vesela had first come back, first seen Emilio after two months of Joseph being gone, she’d been dumbfounded. She’d cried, they’d cried together even, but she’d been confused who in the hell this boy was. Emilio wasn’t the same. He was in a lot of ways and yet in so many more, he’d changed. Some for worse and some for better. Emilio had not only become a bit less…wholesome maybe was what she was looking for, just from the pain he’d been through, but he’d also become more aware. Understanding. Intelligent to the way the world spun.

“What would piss me off if I didn’t know that there is something for me in there,” he pointed a stern finger at the box, “is that you guys thought I was being ungrateful for getting a car-”

“And I told you,” Finlay interrupted, a glint in his eye that Vesela had learned meant he was getting annoyed, “that I know it’s not just about the car.”

“You didn’t tell me you got a letter!”

“I didn’t want you to get upset-”

“I wouldn’t have gotten upset at you!” Emilio shouted, his fist clenched at his sides. “It’s not your fault if my dumbass former best friend didn’t leave me something like I was worth nothing to him! It’s his! I would’ve pissed on his grave not yours!”

Vesela would not laugh.

“What makes me mad at you now is that you could’ve just straight up said ‘hey, you know, he gave me a letter’ and I would’ve been hurt, sure, but I would’ve appreciated your honesty. Reflected on the fact that I haven’t been a part of his life for almost four damn years and that in that time, I’m so fucking happy that he was able to forge something special with someone when I know how hard it is for him to make friends. To trust people. And if he left you something, it meant that he trusted you. And I’d never trample on that. Give me some damn credit.”

“So, like, you’re not mad at him?” Xia asked, scratching at his head, confused as hell. She wondered if he’d let her buzz his head. It looked so bad. What the hell had happened there?

Emilio closed his eyes and rubbed his temples. In that second, he looked exhausted and Vesela wondered if it was from the situation or just life in general. She wished he’d take the money she always tried to give him. It wasn’t pity despite what he thought; it was just that she would’ve done that for Joseph if he needed it. Emilio was almost as close to her heart as Joseph was. “I’m…just…I’ve…had a long day.” He laughed, opening his eyes and shaking his head with a tired smile as he added “Long week and long month and long year. I’m sorry.”

Xia and Finlay shared a glance before Finlay shrugged and replied “No, it’s fine. Uh…glad we could work it out. I think.”

Huffing and crossing his arms all over again, he dropped himself down onto her bed and rolled his eyes as Walnut stepped up beside him. She seemed to have taken a liking to Emilio. And who wouldn’t? He was Emilio. “You guys are infuriating and yet, I like it. There is something severely wrong with me.” Before anyone said anything, he tapped his fingers on the box, his gaze drawn to it and said “You don’t need to open it now.”

“Emilio-”

“No, no,” he said, cutting her off, still tapping along, “you’ll need to open this alone and we’ll grant you that privacy.” Looking up at her and smiling with a wink, he added “Just make sure you pass on whatever’s mine. And no peeking.”

_“And no peeking!” Joseph called, the pitter patter of his small feet the only thing that gave clue to the fact that he’d gone. Vesela was tempted to take a look between her fingers but she’d just get hell for it. “I’m serious!”_

_It felt like she was hiding behind her hands for decades until finally, she heard those pitter pattering feet once more. “Can I-”_

_“No,” Joseph said, sounding like he was right in front of her. She felt him fumbling around her wrist as something thin and soft wrapped around it. It took some time of him trying to tie this thing on but eventually after quite a few huffs, his hands disappeared as he clapped in delight. “Okay! Open!”_

_Removing her hands from her face, Vesela glanced at the bracelet now adorning her wrist. It was an uneven mess of a braid made of strings, pinks and greens. “It’s so pretty!” Joseph bounced, a huge smile on his cute face. “Did you make it?”_

_Nodding so enthusiastically that she thought his head would fall off, Joseph rested his hands on her thighs and leaned forward, putting his face in hers. “Today in class, we were supposed to make bracelets for someone special. You’re my most special person ever, mayko.”_

Clenching the bridge of her nose as if that’d stop the tears burning her eyes and the cries choking her throat, Vesela stared at the remnants of a raggedy bracelet made of pinks and greens as she sat there on her bed, alone after hours of company. The bracelet had torn – she didn’t even remember on what – and she’d felt bad because Joseph would always smile when he saw it on her wrist. But he’d taken it in stride and told her not to worry, he’d take care of it.

He’d been six and he’d kept it for her after all these years.

Vesela took a deep breath and steadied herself – eyes closed with some more breathing because that never went wrong – and set the remnants of the bracelet to the side. To anyone, it was trash with its frayed strings faded with age. To her, it was like finding a treasure worth millions. She’d always been the sentimental type but it seemed, Joseph was far more than her.

“My baby always was a bit of a pack rat,” she laughed softly, cursing when a sliver of wood worked its way into her finger. After a year of hanging onto this box, she was more than aware that there was no way she’d ever get it open without Joseph being around. And being that he wasn’t, she’d taken a hammer to it, smashing and smashing until there was a hole big enough to get her hands in. It was technically dangerous and she’d been worried about damaging whatever was inside but a few cuts and splinters were nothing in the grand scheme of things. Joseph liked to make things complicated and, well, leaving her everything important in an impenetrable box was just his style.

What had been atop everything once she’d worked her way in was an envelope with more than just a paper inside that distinctly said in big fat capital marker letters ‘EMILIO’ so Vesela had made sure to move that to the side. Her curiosity burned but just like she wouldn’t want someone reading what Joseph had left for her, Emilio wouldn’t want her intruding on what was his. What he’d been aching for without realizing that he had.

Nope, curiosity was just going to have to go shove itself up someone else’s ass.

Under that, she’d found a sheet of paper, carefully folded by thirds, with a sticky note that had ‘mayko’ written on it. She’d held it for a long time, up against her chest so it could be as close to her heart as she could manage without eating it. After a long moment of silence that was only broken by her wobbly breaths, Vesela had forced herself to unfold it.

Despite what she had told Emilio, she wasn’t ready at all.

The minute she’d unfolded it and read ‘Dear mayko,’ Vesela had folded it right back up and moved it to the side. A year had officially passed an hour ago but it seemed that year had done nothing in preparing her. Talking about him, talking _with_ him and eating meals, even cleaning out his room had been…they’d been not easy but they sure as hell hadn’t been too hard. She found joy in talking about him to anyone who’d listen and visiting him made her feel like she still had him. Cleaning his room and going through his boxes from Henrietta hadn’t been hard at all. Vesela wasn’t making him a shrine; his memory was in her heart, not in his things.

But all of that was nothing compared to holding his last words to her.

With the two letters out of the way, Vesela had began digging through the objects, the leftovers of the bracelet being the first thing she’d gone for. Now faced with the mystery of the contents once more, Vesela reached for the two knives just sitting there. Immediately, she recognized one of them, even without looking at it up close because it was one of three Ivo had brought with him from Bulgaria. One had gone to Yulian and Ivo had kept the other two.

It seemed Joseph had taken one. Not that Ivo would’ve really minded; he would’ve ended up giving them to him anyways.

The other knife, however, Vesela didn’t recognize at all. It was slim and black and, well, seemingly ordinary. Except it had that funny feeling that Vesela got whenever she touched certain things of Joseph’s. Like his wooden box. Like the knife she’d given Asen. It was special, she just didn’t know why it was special.

She moved on to the next item.

Unwrapping a tissue, Vesela blinked down in shock at what she held. She could’ve sworn… “You’re a nasty little thief, aren’t you?” Vesela laughed as she held up her father’s necklace by its chain. The ornate cross hung there, saying hello after them not seeing each other for so long. Vesela had put it away when Ivo had given it to her at Christmas all those years ago but just like Ivo’s knife, Joseph had snatched it for himself.

Vesela couldn’t help but wonder where their lives would be if her father was still around. She thought it often while thinking about every wrong turn she’d taken in her life. It went without being said that her father wouldn’t have been any more accepting than Ivo had been. That much she knew just like she knew it’d eat at Joseph to have his grandfather disgusted with him more than having his father.

The major question here was if Joseph would still be gone if her father was here.

With a sigh, Vesela undid the clasp of the magically born necklace and put it on herself. “Probably. My boy’s stubborn. Just like his daddy.”

Almost systematically, she worked her way through the contents of his box, some things she gave nothing more than a curious glance while others caused her to pause a bit longer. They were mostly sentiments of the past. By the time she was through, she was wearing Ivo’s father’s cross beside her father’s and Ivo’s favorite Rolex that Joseph must’ve also snatched. There was one item left, also wrapped in a tissue, and like with her father’s cross, she froze upon unwrapping it.

_“Here,” Vesela murmured after the hug of a lifetime. She’d be able to feel his pain just from that hug alone, even if she hadn’t read it all over his face. “Take care of this for me.”_

_Joseph’s eyes went wide as he stared at what she held. It was hardly the most expensive piece of jewelry that she owned but it was definitely the most precious outside of her wedding ring. It was the first piece Ivo had ever given her, a delicate gold necklace with a little key hanging off it. He’d given it to her when he told her how he felt. How he just knew they’d spend a lifetime together. “Are you sure?”_

_“’Course I’m sure,” Vesela laughed as she stood on her tiptoes to put it around his neck. Who would’ve thought he’d finally reach this height? Thank God. “Keep it safe for me until I get back. Them damn Italians will probably try to get their filthy paws all over it, you know? Can never trust one.”_

_She knew the minute he smiled and began rubbing the charm between his fingers that this was the perfect idea. Vesela had known that her leaving, even for a vacation, was going to be hard on him. With him wearing her necklace, she hoped to make it a little easier on him. “Don’t spout tatko’s garbage now.” Glancing back at her, he asked tentatively “But are you sure?”_

_“Positive. You take extra care with it so that way when I come back, you can give it right back to me, okay?”_

Her eyes fluttered shut as tears ran down her cheeks, the tissue wrapped necklace clenched between her fist after reading the little note left atop it.

_I’m ready to give it right back now_

Taking in a shuddering breath, Vesela quickly put on the necklace as she shoved one of the knives into the pocket of the jeans she still hadn’t changed out of and got to her feet. She had a bone to pick and she planned on picking it.

 

 

The problem with picking her bone was that it was very late for said bone picking. “What do you mean I can’t come in?” Vesela asked, sure that not only her exhaustion but her annoyance was oozing from her voice. “It’s a freaking cemetery! There shouldn’t be hours!”

With a bored look on his face and his chin rested in his hand, the guard in the booth who was denying her entrance replied “Lady, visiting hours are until five. No more than that. Sorry, but you’re gonna have to come back tomorrow.”

Yeah, that wasn’t going to work for her. At all. Putting on her ‘pity me’ face, Vesela began “Sir-”

“Nah, nah,” the man interrupted with a tired grunt. “I’ve heard a lot of sob stories about moms, dads, grandpaps-”

“Sons?” she asked, not giving in that easy. “Please, today is my son’s anniversary. One year anniversary.”

“Ma’am-”

“He committed suicide.” The man’s jaw snapped shut, stopping his oncoming refusals. “He was barely eighteen. Please. I won’t even be long,” she added with assurance. “Just an in and out. Half an hour tops. I just have a few things that I forgot to say to him this morning.”

The man seemed to be mulling it over, Vesela hoping that she’d pulled his heart strings enough, before he nodded for a second. “I’m very sorry for your loss-”

Nope, she was so not leaving. Pulling out her wallet from her bag, she prayed she had some good cash in there. “Wait, wait. I bet your salary sucks-”

“Twenty bucks ain’t gonna get you nowhere.”

Ha. She was a Kavinsky. She had millions to her name. Billions if Ivo’s cars, real estate, and business were counted. His watches. His everything. Slapping down a total of seventy-three dollars, Vesela smiled and pushed them forward to the window. “Seventy? I bet that sure sounds nice, huh?”

Looking unamused in the sickly light of his booth, the guard looked down from her to the money and back up again. He seemed to consider the proposition for awhile before muttering “If something happens to ya, it ain’t my problem. You broke in.”

She’d knife the fuck out of anyone who dared to touch her. “Oh sure thing. I hoped the fence and everything. No worries. So can I go in?”

With a sigh as he stood, the guard came out to Vesela barely suppressing her happy squeal, bouncing on her heels as he unlocked the gate to let her in after grabbing the cash and stuffing it in his pocket. Giving her a pointed look before she went in, he said “You broke in.”

“I sure as hell did!”

The man held out a flashlight, “It’s good as a beating baton too.”

“Look at you being worth every dollar,” Vesela laughed, accepting the heavy light. She hadn’t even thought of bringing a light. She’d been in too much of a hurry and probably would’ve just ended up using her phone. “Thank you. Really.”

“You broke in,” he reminded as she went in, nearly skipping to her lou in the dark cemetery. “And be safe.”

By the time she’d managed her way to their family plot, Vesela had gotten lost twice in the stupid dark. She’d cursed Joseph because this was obviously his fault and then she’d cursed Ivo because it was his fault too and then she cursed her father for picking this plot and for inviting Ivo to be a part of it.

_“You’re my family, are you not?”_

Her father wasn’t the only one buried here. He was beside her mother and on his other side was Emiliya, Ivo’s mother. Next to her was an empty plot that was meant for Ivo when he died. Rather, when she had something to bury. It’d crossed her mind a million times to take his fake body off life support and just bury that but it seemed wrong. It wasn’t Ivo to be in Ivo’s spot beside his mother. But then, what else did she have to bury? Ivo’d been dissolved in a shower. There was no body to bury.

It was quite the conundrum.

Walking past their dead loved ones, she sat down in front of Joseph’s tombstone that was in the row right behind his father. She was technically sitting _on_ him but he’d understand. She flashed the flashlight on Joseph’s stone and then the one beside it, her ritual of greetings when she visited. “Venc, how’ve you been. Sorry but me and Joseph have an issue, spare us a minute.”

Nikol thought she was possibly crazy the way she spoke to the graves. Vesela knew that wherever her dead peeps were, they could hear her just fine. It was her sister’s problem if she couldn’t get on the same wavelength as the dead.

Taking her key necklace out of her pocket, Vesela clenched it tight with the charm imprinting itself in her skin with a painful pinch. “You’re ready to give it right back? Are you out of your freaking mind, dumbass? Did you seriously…” Vesela sighed and shut her eyes, resting her forehead on her drawn up knees. “I opened your box,” she whispered. “Finally got around to it. It’s been a year now and I thought…I thought I was ready. I was so confident in myself too.”

She hadn’t been ready at all.

It didn’t matter how much she’d managed to build a stable foothold for herself. It didn’t matter how much she’d rebuilt her life, how much she ate, how much she smiled, laughed, whatever. None of it had matter in those minutes it’d taken to bash the wood in. To stick her hand in and begin pulling out things meant for her after his death.

The surrealism of the situation got to her every time. Her baby was dead and, yeah, she was doing pretty okay up to this point but fucking hell, her son was dead.

“I went through the things,” Vesela continued, staring down at the charm in her hand. It was too dark to really make out anything but she knew its details by heart. “I went through them but…I couldn’t open the letter. I still can’t do it, baby. I really…I just, I’m not ready.” She laughed, shutting her eyes against her tears as she sat here, visiting her dead child. She’d thought herself so strong, so _ready_.

How foolish she’d been.

It felt wrong, all this time she was wasting not reading his words. Words she thought she was ready to dissect, had been sure that she was until she’d held that fateful paper in her hands. “I need more time, okay? I’m sorry. I’m sorry I can’t do it.”

Vesela couldn’t even manage that for him.

“Sometimes…sometimes mamas need a little extra time, you know? I know you know. You’re so smart and sweet and adorable and just…perfect.” Stretching her legs out and leaning back on her hands after putting her necklace atop the others, Vesela whispered “It didn’t matter what you did, you were always perfect to me, okay? I can’t even remember if I’ve ever told you that and I should’ve and I’m sorry if I didn’t but I’m telling you now, okay, Joseph? You’re perfect. And I…” she wiped the tears that made it seem like her eyes were drooling profusely, “and I love you so damn much, you stupid idiot. So. Damn. Much. And I’m gonna read that goddamn letter and I’m probably going to come confront you about shit but I’m gonna read it, baby. Just give mama some time.”

Mama just needed a little more time, then she could do it. She could.

 

 

“Look,” Xia began as they sat in Vesela’s car that was surrounded by a chorus of barking. “I like dogs. I like ‘em, I swear.”

“But?” Emilio laughed though he wasn’t looking much better as Boris jumped up at the window. “You know…I don’t need the car, Mrs. Kavinsky.” Boris barked, his huge maw opening wide. “Really.”

She’d always hated Ivo’s dogs. Lord, did she hate them. They scared the fuck out of her. Subconsciously, she knew that they’d never hurt her because they knew her, knew that they’d lose their tails should they do something because she was special. Because their master had taught them that she was untouchable.

But still.

“Y’all are scaredy bitches,” Finlay snorted though he wasn’t exactly getting out of the car either. He flinched when Lud popped up at his window, barking like he’d found his youth again. Him and Doug were technically ‘retired,’ too old to manage any sort of guarding, but they loved putting the younger dogs in their places. “Scaredy.”

They were never going to get anywhere if nobody moved. “My car is getting scratched,” Vesela said, opening her door and finding Lyubov waiting for her. “Hello, Lyubov, I brought a familiar face. Emilio, come ‘ere.”

“Hell no,” Emilio snorted, shrinking into his seat as his wide eyes stared at Boris still at the window. Even Vesela felt uncomfortable around Boris. She’d never liked Dama as it was not to have an even bigger rotty around now.

“Come on, Lyubov and Lud will remember you.” Or at least, she hoped so. All she needed was for something to go wrong. Emilio had enough dog trauma as it was. “Doug too though he must be sleeping.”

“Nope.”

“Emilio.”

“Nuh-uh.”

She’d never had Ivo’s or even Joseph’s command over the dogs. Getting them to settle was not going to be- Pointing at Ivan who’d let them in through the gate, she waved her hand around the dogs. “Do something about this please.” There was a reason he was here, right? All the guards spent day and night with these monsters. “Shoo them or something.”

Ivan laughed before he whistled, loud and piercing, causing the dogs to pause, their ears perking to the command. With a quick sharp word, he had the dogs walking over to him at the ready, their full attention on him. Vesela took this moment for its opportunity and went to Emilio’s side of the car, dragging him out. “Mrs. Kavinsky,” he whined, trying to keep himself in the car, “I really-”

“Shush,” Vesela snorted, yanking him out while Finlay got out making Xia find his nerves and get himself out too. Or maybe he just didn’t want to be seen as the scared one. “You used to love coming here.”

“Before I was eaten!”

Vesela felt with him, she really did, but he had to be tough. “These dogs didn’t eat you. Lyubov almost got eaten with you. She deserves a hello.”

Guilting him with Lyubov worked better than she’d thought it would as he dragged himself out and peered around Finlay to the dogs still at Ivan’s attention. “What if they don’t remember me? And I don’t know those other ones.”

Boris, the newest addition to the family with only having been here a couple years, was twitchy, his attention not fully caught as he turned to stare at them. He wanted to come but knew he’d be in trouble if he did. “Who’s that beast,” Xia whispered, looking like he wished he could hide behind Finlay too. “He’s a scary fuck.”

“That’d be Boris,” Vesela laughed, trying to make it seem she was totally chill because Boris was definitely a scary fuck. He was bigger than Dama had ever been and muscled in ways Doug used to be. Problem was, he wasn’t as trained as them. Ivo hadn’t gotten enough time with Boris. “He’s a character.”

“Boris keeps looking at me,” Emilio murmured. “Why.”

“Maybe he likes you,” Finlay replied, walking towards the dogs slowly. He was braver than any of them, that was for sure. “Do they speak English?”

Xia rolled his eyes, “Dogs don’t speak.”

“Mrs. K?”

“Bulgarian mostly besides for simple things like hello and sit.” There’d be no point to guard dogs if anyone could talk to them. “But their well-trained so it should be fine.” Boris turned his body instead of just his head, carefully watching Finlay advancing. “But do be careful, please.”

Finlay was a few feet away by now, all of them including Ivan and the dogs watching him carefully. “I wouldn’t get to close,” Ivan said, keeping the dogs to him with a snap and a word. “You’re an intruder here, not a guest in their eyes. They take kindly to Lady Vesela but without my lord himself here, they don’t appreciate new people.”

“Your lord, huh,” Xia mumbled under his breath, watching Finlay intently. “Yo, man, I love you but if it attacks you, I’m booking it.”

“No loyalty,” Finlay laughed, coming to a halt and crouching just a bit, slowly sticking his hand out to Boris. There was barely a foot between them and if Boris lunged, Vesela wasn’t too sure there was anything any of them could do outside of shooting the dog off him and hoping they’d get to a hospital fast enough. “Hello, Boris. You’re an intimidating one, aren’t you? You got Jiang and Emilio pissing in their pants.”

“I’m wearing shorts, bitch.”

Emilio cleared his throat and backed up slowly, glancing around the lot. “We should, uh, get my car and go and…yeah…Finlay, I’m sorry, but you’re sacrifice today.”

Inching his way closer shuffle by shuffle, Finlay held his hand out right under Boris’ head. “What do I get in return? A night of sexy things?”

“And here I thought you were the wholesome one.”

“Not on your life, sweet pea,” Xia laughed, slowly making his way to stand over Finlay’s crouched form. “No one who’s a buddy with our deceased buddy is wholesome. Besides Skov. Skov’s still got it in him, that adorable fucker.”

_“Where’s Blake?” Vesela asked, peering around the only two boys on her porch. She was missing one. “Did he not come?”_

_Finlay was staring with wide eyes at the interior of the house, utter shock written all over his face. She didn’t know why when he’d seen the McMansion they’d lived in back in Henrietta. Henrietta’s house was bigger than this one if not nicer. This one was way nicer. Older, but definitely nicer. “This is…wow…”_

_“I will gander after a piss,” Xia said walking in until coming to an abrupt halt, glancing around his foreign surroundings much like Walnut was now after her torrid of excited barking at seeing Vesela. “Uh, where’s-”_

_“That hall,” Vesela said, pointing towards Ivo’s office that was taking too damn long to clean, “first door.” She turned to Finlay, “Blake?”_

_“He said if he comes,” Finlay murmured as he took a careful look around before reaching the backyard door and opening it for Walnut, “he’s going to spend it crying and he didn’t want to have to put that on you. Seeing you will apparently make him cry.”_

Leaving Finlay and Xia to their own devices with the prayer that they’d neither get hurt nor touch cars they shouldn’t, Vesela grabbed Emilio’s arm and led him into the large warehouse, greeting a couple guards as she went. To this day, it felt wrong coming here without Ivo but there was no more Ivo and, well, someone had to check up here once in a while. “You’re going to love it,” she assured, still dragging Emilio along as they passed car after car. Vesela had half a mind to give away or sell the cars, unsure what the hell she was supposed to do with so many, but Ivo would be spinning in his dissolved grave if she did. “Joseph worked on it for months.”

“I’ve no doubt,” Emilio replied, glancing behind them every few seconds to see if any wayward dogs were following. “But honestly, Mrs. Kavinsky, I really don’t know what to do with it. I don’t even drive the one Mr. Kavinsky gave me. It’s sitting in Max’s garage still.”

Vesela paused, bringing Emilio to a stumbling halt with her. It was a stupid idea, she knew it was, but God knew it’d make her feel whole again. “Emilio?”

He turned to face her, a smile one his handsome face. Vesela knew it’d taken him hard months to be able to smile like that again. “Yeah?”

“If…I said come live with me, would you?”

Eyes going wide and smile disappearing into confusion, Emilio gave a bewildered laugh. “What? No offense but I don’t live with my parents to…live with you.”

It’d been a stupid question, Vesela’d known that, but she’d still wanted to try. Shaking her head with a sigh, she grabbed his hand in hers and continued their walk until they came to a halt in front of one of many black sleek cars. This one was of course different than the rest. “I know, I know, I just…” Maybe it was because last night had been such a hard night that tears welled in her eyes. Refusing to let Emilio see them so he wouldn’t get upset himself, she clenched her teeth and forced her sorrows down. “Being around you…”

Emilio’s hand squeezed hers as he rested his head on her shoulder. “It really helps me too. Kind of feels a bit like the old days. All we’re missing are your two assholes of men.” He laughed as he took out the key from his pocket and unlocked the car. “Here we are, you and me, two messes of people who let two men make some deep ass impressions in our souls.”

“You make it sound like a bad thing,” she murmured, leaning against the open door after Emilio sat in the driver’s seat. He rubbed the fresh new steering wheel that was a work of art compared to what it used to be. “Is it?”

Checking out the center console and glove compartment, Emilio replied “Maybe. Think about it for a second. You and me, we love them. Love them so much that we’d probably do and go through anything for them. But why should we?”

It took her a moment to realize it wasn’t a rhetorical question as he stared at her patiently. “I’m sure you’ll tell me the answer.”

With a smile, he explained “The way I see it, we don’t have to erase ourselves for the person we love. We can change, and that’s perfectly fine, but why should we have to struggle with erasure? Why be naïve? That’s not to say that they didn’t love us each, spoil us, be willing to give us the entire world, but, Mrs. Kavinsky, we both know that we had to give up little pieces of us for that.”

Yeah, she knew.

“They were amazing people – mostly – but being amazing and loving doesn’t give them a pass. And I was naïve to that. It didn’t matter how much I did stand up for myself, whether I like it or not, I know that I bent over backwards for him sometimes. Bent when I didn’t want to. You bent when you didn’t want to. And here we are. They’re gone and purposefully carved holes in our hearts so we have trouble surviving without them. And look at us; we’re a mess. They were successful.”

Vesela knew he was right but that didn’t mean she was happy about acknowledging all this. If she’d died or Emilio had, she knew that Ivo or Joseph would’ve been broken for them. They would’ve been depressed, distraught with pain, and having their days spent in tears and anger.

But it still wouldn’t amount to what she and Emilio were going through.

“We picked ourselves some trashy men, huh?”

Emilio laughed, shoving the key in the ignition and giving it a twist of the wrist, bringing the beast of a car to life with a dangerous rumble. Someone whistled, happy with the noise. “Manipulative, maybe. Trashy would just offend the pair of them.”

“Aw shit!” Xia exclaimed, running up to them and rubbing his hands along the car. “Fuck my dick, it’s beautiful!”

“Fuck your…”

“Dick, yeah, Puerto Rican babe. Get with it.” Dropping himself into the passenger seat and slamming his door shut, Xia bounced as he buckled up. “Take me somewhere. Show me Jersey, you Jersey babe. Shit, wait,” he leaned over Emilio and shouted “Yo, Swanman! Get your fine black ass in! We got a tour scheduled!”

Finlay dashed over, Boris on his heels because apparently if anyone could make Boris friendly, it was this young man. “Fuck, it’s glorious. I don’t remember it lookin’ so damn fine.” Rounding the hood, he opened the passenger and slung a thumb over his shoulder with Boris by his side. “I get shotgu-”

“Fuck you,” Xia snorted pushing him away and slamming the door shut. “I got here first.”

Emilio laughed and said something to which Finlay replied with his own laugh. Xia’s voice cut in with an annoyed sigh and Vesela couldn’t help but smile as she watched these three boys who’d become so important in her life. There wasn’t much left of her family, but having these boys made it feel like it’d grown into something else. She had three other boys to look after and love now. They’d grow, find love, have families, and Vesela got to be a part of that. She thought that maybe she’d feel a little bitter about it because she didn’t get to see this happen with her own son but Vesela couldn’t find it within herself to be. She adored these fools too much.

Being bitter about it all would just mean she blamed Joseph for finding his peace and she’d never do that. Their paths differed and that was okay. It meant that life could only get better from here. Despite Vesela saying and believing that she was better, that she was doing fine…

For some reason, none of it was true until this moment. This moment with her understanding and these boys and the sight of their futures.

She took the easiest breath she’d been able to take in a long time.

And that was that.


	12. Finlay's Letter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [sambamart](http://www.sambamart.tumblr.com)

_Three months after Joseph’s death_

 

“Fucking Jiang,” Finlay muttered as he picked up an empty fry carton off the floor of his Golf. They may all judge Charles call me Chuck for how much of a slob he was, but this was too much. No one should be allowed to disrespect cars like this. Cars we sacred. “I’m so going to throw my gum wrapper on the floor of your Supra next time. Just watch. Or worse; a bag of chips, you bitch.”

Saturdays were, by habit long broken into him, cleaning days. It didn’t matter what it was, but something had to be cleaned once the house – room in his case – was taken care of. Finlay was lead to believe that it was because the next day was Sunday and everything had to be clean for the religious day of the week but as he’d grown, he’d wondered if it was just to make him clean. It was a habit he’d brought with him from his time living with his parents and Finlay felt like it was one of the better things they’d taught him. He didn’t mind cleaning; it brought on a sense of calmness. Kept the hands and mind busy. It was great for thinking too. Clear the mind and just think.

Today’s task after having cleaned his room was his car. It hadn’t been given any proper love in a while and deserved a good hour or two of affection. Even a hand wash. Sticking his hand under the passenger seat, he pulled out a balled-up wrapper of a… “Chicken sandwich.” Finlay crunched it between his fist, the paper crackling loud in the quiet of Aglionby’s dorm parking lot. Most people had better things to do with their Saturdays than just cleaning. At least the weather was nice in mid-October. “I’m gonna throw this at his face,” he muttered darkly, tossing the wrapper to the side onto the pavement to pick up later. “Asshole.”

Systematically working himself through his car while cursing at Jiang because Skov would never do this, Finlay popped open the glove compartment, having saved it for last. He knew what he was stashing there, he just hadn’t wanted to face it until he’d had to. Finlay knew that he had to tackle it eventually but…no one said tackling the huge elephant was that easy.

The envelope he held hadn’t been touched since it’d been given to him. Finlay wasn’t too sure why. He was a ‘face things head on kind of guy’ but this was one thing he hadn’t been set for. Finlay wasn’t even sure if he was set for it now. Time was passing but for some reason, instead of preparing him, all it as doing was making him even more apprehensive. It was doing the opposite to what it was actually supposed to be doing.

Maybe he just had to do this. Now. Right this second. No more thinking about it. Finlay just had to dive in head on without a second thought because it was that second thought that kept holding him back.

Finlay didn’t let his confidence pass him by as he tore open the crinkled envelope, pulling out the priceless sheet of paper within. He was no coward.

 

_Dear Finlay,_

_The circumstances that brought me to Henrietta were hardly ideal but I guess in a way, I’m thankful for them. I met people that I never thought I would, people who ended up becoming important to me in ways I never thought I’d feel again._

_I think out of everyone, our relationship was the weirder one. We met under ugly circumstances but somehow learned to tolerate each other. Oddly enough, I came to respect you. Thought of you as one of the very few friends I’d ever made. My respect grew to trust and my trust evolved into something more. I liked the fact that you came from a hard background and yet you found joy in caring for things like the plants in your sill. It was like it didn’t matter how much ugly you’d seen and been through, you still knew how to smile. Was still all squishy on the inside._

_Maybe that was why I trusted you so much. Why you always caught my eye, even when I didn’t realize it._

_I trusted you with secrets in their entirety that only two other people know. I trusted you with me who I’ve only ever been able to trust with my parents and Emilio. You became part of a pretty exclusive club and I don’t regret it. Really, I can’t say I regret too much in life outside of the obvious of my father and Prokopenko. Leaving Emilio high and dry. Having things go so horribly sour between Liam and I. Not having the proper chance to love like I wanted to._

_But meeting you will never be one of those regrets. I wonder if I’d realized sooner how much I like you if things would’ve been different. I think, in another lifetime, we would’ve been great together. In another universe where I healed and learned how to become okay again. Where just breathing didn’t hurt anymore._

_Long ago I learned that writing letters always forced me to tell the truth. I don’t know why, but it always seemed that putting words onto a paper had to be more than just falsities. If I’m going through all the effort of writing, then it should be nothing less than truth._

_I’m not going to sit here and say that I love you. But I’ve no doubt that I could’ve. I like you, a lot. You’re things that are more precious to me than anything. You’re more real than most people I’ve met. You, Finlay, are an amazing person and I know that you’re going to go far in life. You had it rough from the very little I know of you but I think that only made you a stronger person. It was that strength, that smile, and that ability to laugh despite everything that you’d been through that made me attracted to you._

_Life had thrown you so much trash but you took it all in stride, struggled and hurt and cried, but you took it and didn’t let it stop you from being you. I knew that if anyone in the world would understand me, see me under all the ugliness, it’d be someone like you. A boy who could take all my sins in stride._

_Meeting you will forever be one of the best things to happen in my life. You made some of my darkest days shine just that little bit brighter._

_Thank you for being you. I’m forever grateful._

_In another life with love,_

_Joseph Kavinsky_


	13. Emilio's Letter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [sambamart](http://www.sambamart.tumblr.com)

_A year and five months after Joseph’s death_

 

Emilio sighed as he dropped himself onto his couch, bowl of cereal in hand. Fruit Loops were life. Max blinked up at him from the floor where he lay in the pillow pile he’d created. “Where’s mine.”

“Get it yourself,” Emilio snorted, spooning colorful loops into his mouth. “I ain’t your servant.”

“But I’m your guest. You should be polite to your guest.”

“Since when are you a guest? You’re here all the time.”

Max pouted, trying not to smile in that stupid pout. “But I slept here. You should at least serve me breakfast.”

Giving him an unamused glance before munching more cereal, Emilio replied as he grabbed the remote off the floor “You sleep here all the time too. There, in that stupid pillow pile of yours.”

Hugging a pillow to his chest as he laughed, Max sat up and grabbed Emilio’s bowl of cereal like the asshole that he was. He winked as he took a spoonful of Fruit Loops, making a show of how much he was enjoying it. “Nom nom, bitch.” Taking another mouthful and swallowing, Max sat the bowl between his legs and said “And anyways, it’s not my fault I have to build a pillow pile. You won’t share the bed and the couch is too small of me to stretch out.”

“Then do the fetal position,” Emilio replied, slipping down onto the floor after putting the news. Taking back his breakfast, he added “Marcus already thinks you have a thing for me, let’s not add gas to his jealous fire.”

“Dude, you’re gonna dump him anyways. Who cares what delusions he likes to make up? I’d prefer to sleep comfortably.”

Emilio had no idea how to say he wasn’t so sure about the dumping thing still. It was a constant battle between them. Emilio knew as much as his father and Max did that this relationship was probably going nowhere but he felt so guilty with the thought of dumping Marcus while he was overseas. And then he’d feel guilty when he got back because maybe things would work better. They never knew. “You seem pretty damn comfortable on your pillows.”

“Did he call yesterday like he was going to?” Emilio shook his head as he stared down into his milk. He was sure that Marcus just got busy. It was a call Emilio had been waiting for now for two months. An early Merry Christmas. The only Merry Christmas they’d probably get before it became Valentine’s. “He probably just got busy. Marine and all.”

He just shrugged, his morning having taken a depressing turn. It wasn’t Marcus’ fault but having your loved one deployed wasn’t easy when you only got to hear their voice every month or two. If you were lucky. “Here, finish these,” he mumbled, handing Max the bowl and dragging himself the few steps to the bedroom and rolling onto his unmade bed.

There was a heavy sigh before a weight suddenly dropped beside him, Max’s face popping up above his own. “Emilio.”

“What.”

“Why is that still sitting there? I will open it myself if I have to.”

Instinctively, Emilio’s head tilted up to stare at the envelope that had been standing behind his alarm clock for months now. He made a big fuss about it and there it was, Emilio unable to even touch it. He didn’t blame Max; it was frustrating to just stare at Joseph’s ugly slanted writing.

_EMILIO_

Big ugly letters.

He’d been saying for weeks now that he was just going to open it. What was the point of just staring at it every morning and every night?

“I get it if you’re still not ready but…I really think you should give it a shot. It might help this,” he jabbed Emilio’s heart with a sharp finger, “feel less like a pile of knots, y’know?”

Time had taught him that listening to Max usually brought good results. He blinked up at that stupid handsome face that was staring back at him and reached out for the envelope. “Easy peasy, right?”

With a smile, Max plopped down onto the bed, putting Marcus’ pillow over his face. “I’m here if you need me. I’m not if you need privacy.”

“I hope you suffocate,” Emilio snorted, sitting up and taking a deep breath before carefully opening the aging paper.

His heart stopped and his next breath caught before he even had a chance to read anything.

Dropping the envelope into his lap, Emilio covered his face and laughed, tears filling his eyes to the brim. He knew deep down that Joseph obviously hadn’t forgotten him in their time separated but in his darkest moments, he had trouble believing the truth.

The truth was plain as day, right there, with a simple wood beaded bracelet.

Juicing the tears out of his eyes, Emilio tried not to sniffle too much to not make Max worry and took out the bracelet, watching a little slip of paper fall onto the bed. Picking it up after slipping the familiar wood on his wrist, Emilio unfolded it.

 

_Now it’s your turn to wear it for the both of us_

 

“You okay?” Max asked softly, his face still covered with the pillow. “You want a hug or for me to leave?”

Running a finger along the beads his grandmother had hand carved, Emilio whispered “Neither. I’m okay. I just remembered something beautiful.” He pressed his lips to the bracelet before wiping his eyes once more and taking out the letter that he’d been waiting for. That he’d cried for.

Proof that he’d mattered.

 

_Dear Emilio, my beloved Bromilio, the sweetest corniest wannabe gangster in the world,_

 

_I think I took the longest on your letter. I started and stopped much like you said you had, unable to decide what exactly it was that needed to be put down on paper. I don’t want this to be some recap or hashing out whatever. I want it to be special. I want it to express just how special you are in my life._

_Simply put, I love you. I love you to the point, as tatko would put it, that I’d go to Rikers for you. Hell is for weaklings, you know. If you can survive and thrive in Rikers, then damn, can you make it anywhere. Meeting you opened up a world that I didn’t have. It created a friendship that brightened every one of my days. You made me smile when others couldn’t. Laugh when things hurt so bad._

_Love despite how scary it was._

_When you told me you loved me, it was like the sky had opened and swallowed me into heaven. It made me feel whole like nothing else ever had. It was scary sometimes and it was kind of our demise but I wouldn’t change a thing. You gave me the best months of my life and I want you to always remember that. You’re special in a way that no one else is or ever would’ve been. You’ve taken every one of my flaws, my instability, my insanity, just me as a whole, and loved it. Loved me despite how very me I am. You are the definition of perfect and if anyone ever tells you otherwise, don’t listen. You made every second of my life worth living and that’s powerful. You’re powerful._

_I hope life is treating you well along with this Marcus guy. I already made Asen promise to defend your honor so if Marcus gives you shit, Asen will take care of it. I want you to live a beautiful life so don’t let any man or woman stand in your way of that. If they’re trash, then take out the damn trash. Don’t let them walk over your sweetness._

_I’m not really sure what else I should write. I wrote my entire soul last time so I’m a bit out of words besides for how much I love you. It’d be ridiculous to fill this entire sheet with just that. But I love you, bromilio. I love you, I love you, I love you._

_Since I’m looking for words, I guess I can just tell you menial things. I got a dog but I’m leaving her to this boy I met here. He’s a pretty special boy actually. It’s funny, isn’t it? Me sitting here and writing abut a boy to you. I like him a lot and I think, in another life, I would’ve come to love him. He’s both the total opposite of you and just the same. So perfectly imperfect. He accepted me in all my mess just like you. Who knows, maybe one day you guys will meet._

_Fate likes to play funny games. But it never makes a mistake._

_Thank you for being so very Emilio-ish. It’s not for everyone but you were for me and I’d never want you to be any other way. You made every day a better one, even when we were thousands of miles apart. You made me realize that I’m worth something, no matter how worthless I felt. You made me take notice of how beautiful I can be, even when I felt blackened and withered with self-hate. I’m not going to be around by the time you read this but I know that I’ll be in your heart for a lifetime._

_Don’t be saddened. Don’t feel guilty. I’m doing this for me. I’m doing this to finally feel at peace._

_Please take good care of yourself and thank you for existing in my life. Life wouldn’t have been worth anything without having you in it. You, Emilio Vidal, are priceless in a way that no one ever can be. I know that I’ll forever be in your heart because you and I, we are forever and always._

_Never anything less._

_With love that I hope you remember for the rest of your life,_

_Joseph, your beloved Broseph, the most annoying yet undyingly romantic almost gangster in the world_


	14. Vesela's Letter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [sambamart](http://www.sambamart.tumblr.com)
> 
> And the fourth chapter has finally made it! Enjoy!
> 
> We have two chapters left, my dudes
> 
> Also Eid Mubarak! Or would it be early eid Mubarak because it's tomorrow...

_Two years after Joseph’s death_

 

“Alright!” Vesela exclaimed, plopping herself down on Joseph’s grave with utter determination. She was ready for this. Had been preparing for this for a year now because she was a determined bitch. “We’re doing this, baby. You ready?” Opening her purse, she pulled out a sheet of paper that was folded in thirds and held it up to the blisteringly bright sky. July was too hot for her. “I’m ready. I am ready, Freddy.”

Vesela was in fact, quite ready.

She’d been honest with herself this time around. Mentally, she hadn’t been ready and it’d taken her another year to be and that was okay. Joseph wouldn’t mind. He knew how she was and would only want her to take a look when she was ready. Not before.

It was his anniversary once more and if this year had done anything for her, it was show her how much she still had to grow. But for now, her growing was more than enough to be able to digest his words with an open mind and loving heart. She’d spent the morning reflecting on how she wanted to go about this and knowing that she wanted him to listen as she read aloud, Vesela had come to spend the burning afternoon with her son.

The weather was hardly ideal but it was worth it.

“You know,” Vesela murmured as she fixed herself to sit crossed legged, unfolding the letter but making sure not to really look at the words quite yet, “last time, I made sure to tell the boys to come visit, even paid for their tickets and stuff because I guess…I needed that feeling of not being alone on such a big day. This time…I don’t know, maybe I just needed to quiet?”

They’d called, all three of them, but Vesela had told them not to come. That they had better things to do with their first summer break off college than come to a kind of widowed childless lady. None of them had been happy, least of all Finlay, but they didn’t want to go against her wishes. Vesela hadn’t even bothered seeing Emilio today either. They’d checked on each other but outside of that, not much else.

It was both odd and reassuring that life could be normal after all the pain they’d suffered through. Life could be normal again. Vesela was even going back to school for God’s sake because what else was she supposed to do? She was bored out of her mind. Every day was the same and she’d decided school would help make a change.

Whether they liked it or not – which she did – the world kept spinning after tragedy. And that was okay. No one had to stop living, no one had to take oaths of purity or whatever it was that people did. Finlay got to go to school for journalism. Rented his first ever apartment all by himself with Walnut to keep him company. Xia learned to finally stop crying over Isha and enjoyed visiting his parents, something he hadn’t in years. Blake was already ahead of the game, a software engineering student closer to a job than most in his classes. And Emilio, well, he’d learn that renewing his lease with Marcus on their crappy apartment was a very stupid idea.

“You’d think he would’ve learned by now,” Vesela sighed to Joseph. “Your buddy has too much of a guilty heart. Or maybe too optimistic? Something. Just because Marcus is back for now doesn’t mean things are going to change.”

Ugh, that boy. He needed a brain.

But, to the point, life kept moving. And it was best that way. Maybe Vesela was a little jealous that Nikol had two grandkids and maybe she wished her house wasn’t so empty but…everything was better.

And that was okay.

“Okay,” she said, rubbing her hands together as she picked up her letter. “I can do this. We can do this, sweetheart. Together. I’ve prepared myself well, young grasshopper.”

 

_Dear mayko,_

_Out of the three letters I’ve written, yours is the easiest. That’s not to say it’s because you’re not the most important, but because you are. Because I know every word that I need to say to you before I could even imagine what I need to say to someone else._

_You’re everything to me. The most important person to exist in my world. Without you, I obviously wouldn’t be alive, but without you, I wouldn’t know what life is. I wouldn’t know how to smile or laugh or joke or just exist because you taught me all of those things. You taught me how to be me. You taught me who I even am. I wouldn’t be Joseph Ivo Kavinsky without you to show me the way._

_Thank you._

_To me, you’re the world itself. The embodiment of my universe all wrapped up in this beautiful loving amazing woman who I’d do anything for. I love you to the moon and back, mayko. The moon and back. You are the person that I trust with anything and everything, the person I’d run to before anyone else._

_The person who I know that o matter what the cost, you’d help me with my hurts._

_More than anything else in the world, it is an absolute honor to be your son. Our lives were filled with so much ups and downs and yet, I wouldn’t change a thing. It made us who we are. It made you in a way that is so perfect to me. Perfect that I’d never want to change._

_I know that out of everyone who actually gives a damn about me, you’ll be the first and maybe only one to understand. You’ve always understood me, sometimes more than I’ve ever understood myself, so I know without a doubt that why things turned out this way. It’ll hurt and I’m sorry that I’ll make you cry. There’s nothing I hate more in life than seeing tears in your beautiful eyes._

_Thank you for being everything to me. Thank you for always being there for me and thank you even for those times that it was a bit hard for you to do so. It’s okay. There’s no hard feelings of any kind between us. No shit can ever come between the epic mother-son duo._

_I may not be around anymore, but you’re never alone. I’m always here for you just like I know you are always here for me too. The world doesn’t just stop spinning because I’m gone, so don’t let yours. Keep smiling, keep laughing, and please keep living like you always have. It won’t be easy, I know, but I also know that I’ve never met anyone stronger than you._

_Thank you for being the light at the end of every single one of my horridly dark tunnels. I could never imagine life without someone as perfect as you in it._

_I could go on and on, spend pages if I felt like it, detailing every perfect inch of you. Of how amazing and important you are. But I know there’s no need. I can sum it all up in three words._

_I love you. And thank you for loving me._

_With love from Earth all the way to damn Pluto,_

_Joseph_


	15. Ivo Kavinsky

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [sambamart](http://www.sambamart.tumblr.com)
> 
> I'm sorry that updating has been slowing down! Life has been busy but here's the next chapter! One more to go!  
> Also I'll be updating Proko this week hopefully. His story is close to finished too
> 
> Sorry again! Enjoy!

Tossing the baseball up and down into the air, Ivo sighed as he caught it for the millionth time before tossing it up once more. He’d always wondered how it’d all work out once his zombie body died but he could readily admit that he didn’t like this at all. Not that he would’ve liked hell either but this place was fuck ass boring.

It was just him and his baseball.

He had given up exploring a long time ago. He’d like to say years go but he had no sense of time here. There was no night. The nonexistent sun always shined, much like the birds always chirped. The birds chirped _all the fucking time._ With no sense of time and with birds who never shut up, Ivo had learned that catching sleep whenever was all he could. He wasn’t even sure if he _had_ to sleep, but it was a habit and it brought him peace of mind from all this boredom.

One would think chilling in a forest as their afterlife was super cool. Those people were way fucking wrong because boredom was one hell of a killer. Him and his found baseball were quite bored of each other by now.

Resting his head back on the rando ass log he was sitting against, Ivo stared up at the sky and its nonexistent sun. He didn’t understand where he was but he had a feeling he knew why. The only thing that actually brought him peace here besides his sleep was the fact that he had to be connected to Joseph somehow. Maybe this was where all the imaginary things came from? It wouldn’t be that farfetched of an idea, would it?

“Not as much as you think.”

Jumping in shock while somehow simultaneously wondering when the last time he’d jumped from being the fucked out was, Ivo sat up straight and stared at the…thing across the grassy clearing from him. He had no idea what it was, couldn’t tell one bit, but it was creepy and it was talking to him and that was more than enough for him. Ivo’d spent possible years here without hearing another person’s voice, without even hearing anything besides those damn birds, so to hear something now…to _see_ something now was…monumental. A sign of progress maybe?

Something, that was for sure.

The thing stayed where it stood, crossing its arms and leaning against the tree behind it. It was disturbing really. Ivo was more than sure that it had scales on its skin. Bright iridescent red scales that made the strange being catch the light of the sun with every subtle movement. “Are you bored enough yet?”

Ivo blinked at the thing, possibly a female thing if he were to go by the voice. “Uh…yes…?” If he was part of Joseph’s creation world like he thought, they definitely had to talk about what the fuck this thing was. “Um…so…I’m Ivo.”

He was too far to tell but he could’ve sworn she smiled at him. “Oh yes, I know.”

She knew. How truly wonderful. “So you are?”

The girl scratched at her fiery hair that looked singed almost to the roots. “Also bored. And lost. Strange, isn’t it? I’ve never been lost before. It’s impossible for me to be lost and yet I am. It’s almost like I don’t recognize the place anymore.”

All he’d wanted was a name but that worked too. Getting to his feet with a pained grunt, Ivo stretched until his bones stopped cracking. He missed when he was all muscle. All his definition was gone. His body creaked in ways that told him that he was just too damn old. But he was dead so he didn’t consider that fair at all. “Alright, well, we’re both bored and apparently have no idea where we are so…”

Blinking at him slowly with, what Ivo now realized to be, the creepiest damn eyes that he’d ever seen, the girl replied “You want to come with me?”

Ivo just didn’t want to be alone. Goddammit, he was so damn sick of being alone. He’d been alone while alive and then died again and ended up in this damn place where there were just the fucking birds. Birds that he could never even _see._ He needed contact, even if it was just this freakish girl.

He needed it _so bad._ Craving it like a damn pregnant woman.

“I,” Ivo said, walking over to the scaly girl who he towered over, “would fucking love to.” She stared up at him, her pupils slits. For some odd reason, she reminded him of a dragon. May it be the scales or the eyes or those damn horns coming out of her head. “Let’s get found together, yeah?”

Raising a bright red eyebrow at him, the girl titled her head, examining him with careful eyes like those dragons did in movies. Ivo’s skin began to crawl as she kept staring so intently that he was sure he was about to burst into flames at any moment due to her intensity. Suddenly she blinked, her pupils dilating as she gave him a creepy smile. “Yes, let’s, Ivo.”

So they walked.

They walked. And walked. Ivo with his baseball and this freakish girl without a name. “So…” Ivo began, needing to break the suffocating silence with more than the same old chirping. “What’s your name?”

“Why.”

“Curious.”

The girl snorted, her snort sounding more sinister than anything even Ivo could manage. “Curiosity damaged the cat.”

“Damaged?”

“Well, you’re already dead. Again. So damaged.”

Okay, so she knew about that. But then…she’d have to since she hung around this place, right? Only freaky things inhabited this place. Or so he assumed since she was the only thing he’d ever run into. Did she count as dead? Did only dead things come here? How did all this shit work? If only Timotei had been more accepting of his damaging curiosity. “Why can’t I have your name?”

Not even bothering to spare him a glance as they continued their walk through the trees, the girl replied “Because I don’t like you. You are the cause of many problems.”

Rude. “I don’t consider that your business.”

“To bad that I do, hm?” Giving him a large smile full of sharp teeth, she said “I had to kill him because of the damage you created. It wasn’t as relishing as he thought it’d be for me. He underestimated my like of him. There was no pleasure like I’d thought there’d have been.”

Ivo came to a confused halt, scratching his head just behind his ear. He? Who was this ‘he’ that she was referring too? If this place was connected to Joseph like Ivo figured, the ‘he’ could be none other than his son. But that couldn’t be right at all. Joseph may not be well, but he was alive. Or at least…he’d been before Ivo had crashed.

Why had he crashed? He’d thought about it a lot in his time here because there wasn’t much else to do besides toss his baseball and think. Ivo had figured that like some of the mistakes with his being, Joseph hadn’t set his clicker or whatever correctly. Ivo wasn’t exactly sure what this clicker was or even if that was how it worked because his knowledge was limited in this area but it was the best he’d been able to come up with.

Something told him he was way wrong. A dark painful pit in his heart was telling him that this dragon girl had just given him the real answer. It churned his stomach worse than anything he’d ever been inflicted with and if he’d been Joseph, he would’ve thrown up a gazillion times already. “…he?”

Rolling her eyes like he was the stupidest man in the world, the girl walked on, neither waiting for him nor gracing him with an answer. It took Ivo a minute of making sure he could walk without puking his empty as fuck guts out before he strode after her. If there was one thing that people knew about Ivo besides that he was an asshole was that he was a stubborn bastard.

 And he always got answers to his questions.

“Wait a minute,” he said reaching out and grabbing her shoulder only to jerk his hand right back with a surprised flinch at her boiling skin. “Damn, fuck, girl, don’t you know a high body temp is unhealthy?” Rubbing his palm where it was red from the heat but thankfully not burned, Ivo mumbled “Jesus Christ.” It took him a moment of rubbing his hand to realize that he no longer heard footsteps treading through the grass. Picking his head up, he found the girl giving him that intense gaze once more. “What?”

“You sound so much like him,” she whispered, her eyes wide and her pupils even wider. Almost like a curious cat that’d found what it’d been searching for. “So…much.”

There was no way around it; ‘him’ definitely had to be Joseph. No one else was going to share Ivo’s way of speech. “You…sound like you miss him.”

“Oh I do.”

Struggling with swallowing the lump in his throat because now that Ivo was sure that ‘he’ was Joseph, he was coming to a conclusion he wasn’t liking, Ivo searched her eyes and asked softly “Did you lose him somewhere?” She’d said that she was lost so obviously something had gone amiss. “Maybe we can find him together. What do you think?”

“But I’m lost. I’ve never had this trouble before.” She sighed and shook her head in what he thought might be despair. “This place has been entirely restructured. And maybe that’s a good thing but I don’t like to be left hanging.”

Yeah, he had no idea what she meant by anything but Ivo could roll with it. And he was quite good at finding people. It couldn’t be too hard, could it? Granted, he’d been walking around this place for God only knew how long and had never found anything or anyone but… “So you’ll like punch him when you seem him.”

The girl blinked before she rolled her eyes. “I see stupidity is common.”

“You’re not as cute as you think you are.”

“I never said I was.”

“Uhuh,” Ivo snorted, picking a direction to start their possible journey. “Whatever you say. Just keep up, girl without a name.”

“Diana,” she said suddenly in front of him, a dangerous and yet creepily friendly smile on her face. “My name is Diana and you’ll be lucky if you can keep up with me.”

They walked.

And walked.

Again.

Except Diana made sure to try her best to always be one step ahead of him.

“So what happened to your hair,” Ivo asked as they walked and walked and fucking walked through more and more damn trees. He’d been denied conversation for so long that his soul needed it. His mouth needed it just to get those muscles moving again. “Looks fucked.”

Making an abrupt left that almost had Ivo toppling her down, Diana replied “Fire is not good for hair.”

“Uhuh. Care to elaborate?”

Her ears pricked up as she came to a halt, her head cocked to the side, and her eyes alert. “Dragons don’t do hair, especially when they’re fire dragons.”

So she was a fire dragon then? Cool, cool. Ivo dug it. “Hey, so, is this like the magical imagination forest thing?” Diana gave him an unimpressed look though her alertness never faltered. “You know, where magic people like say…Joseph made his shit? Made me? Why’s it a forest though? And so vast. Are all imaginary making people blessed with huge forest minds? How’s this shit work exactly?”

“You ask too much questions,” Diana said, putting them on the move once more. “Too many. That’s all you humans do. Questions, questions. It’s annoying. Can’t you people just learn?”

Joseph must’ve asked a lot of questions then. Good to know. “Well maybe if you gave answers I wouldn’t have so much questions.”

“Too much. Too much like him. You’re not as cute as you think you are.”

Ha, very funny. “You know-” Ivo choked on his words as he ran into her outstretched arm, stopping him in place. Damn fuck, she was a strong thing. Looking out into the trees that looked the damn same to all the others they’d walked through, Ivo leaned close to her ear and whispered “Why’d we stop.”

Diana didn’t bother to answer, unsurprisingly, as her ears pricked, her arm still holding him back. But she didn’t have to answer, surprisingly, because Ivo had this sudden sensation that seemed almost familiar. It was like…a sudden weight in the air that was almost electrifying, tingling every one of his senses like his nerves had lit up. It was familiar because Ivo _knew_ this feeling. He’d felt it before. Every time he’d touched something he wasn’t supposed to.

Every time he’d touched something that was oh so very _imaginary_.

It was the feeling and yet…there was something more to this. Something almost powerful. The items Ivo had touched, the items he’d come to learn to touch that Joseph had left behind in his room, had never felt like this. Their, dare he say it, magic felt weaker than this. They’d still had the spark but nothing like this. This was almost old magic. Old and skilled. Something far more achieved than anything Joseph had ever conjured up. Than anything Timotei had ever acquired.

Oddly enough, instead of wanting investigate, Diana turned the entirely opposite way, dragging him with a burning hold on his arm. “Wait, wait,” he said, trying to pull himself out of the strongest grasp he’d ever experienced. Jesus above, what the hell? She was fucking strong. “Shouldn’t we check it out?”

“No.”

“But-”

“No buts,” Diana replied, dragging him farther and farther from where his curiosity wanted to take him. “We will not intrude on a place that is not for us to tread.”

He hated her fucking riddles. Yanking his arm out of her hold, revealing raised blistering welts that surprisingly didn’t hurt, Ivo held firm and repeated “Shouldn’t we check-”

“No,” Diana said once more, crossing her arms and daring him to question her again. “We will be intruding-”

“On a place blah, blah,” Ivo finished, crossing his own arms. Did she not know that he could do the stubborn bitch act too? He was quite good at it. “I thought this place is Joseph’s? Can’t we go anywhere we want?”

“See,” a voice called out. A distinctly familiar voice that dropped his heart into a painful pit full of spikes. “One would think that, huh? But then it turns out there’s like a billion rules here but no one is telling and I’m just supposed to magically know them or something. Fuck that.”

Like Ivo, Diana’s eyes searched with an eagerness found in children for the owner of the voice. But the trees revealed nothing. “The birds stopped chirping,” Ivo said, not even sure why he did, but it was all he realized in that moment because the birds never stopped chirping. The noise might lessen but it never stopped completely.

Except for right now.

“That’s because,” Joseph said from wherever the hell he was, “I asked them to shut up. Goddamn birds don’t know when to stop singing. Gets a bit annoying after a while.” He laughed, cackled really, before he added “Y’know, it’s actually pretty funny watching you guys searching like deer in fucking headlights. Ooh, no, like a dog trying to find his squirrel.”

He was mocking them. How very Kavinsky. “Guess the birds like you better than me.”

A snort erupted loud and clear.

Loud and clear and right behind them.

Funny because no one had stood behind them a second ago.

“Well, well, well.” Joseph smiled though really, it was more of a sneer, once Ivo spun around. “Hellooooo, Ivo.” He threw his arms up and around them, his sneer growing larger. “Welcome to my playground!”

It’d been very long years since he’d last seen his son in person. Sure, he’d seen pictures, had even watched videos on Instagram, and he’d gotten his tidbits here and there when he’d managed to beg someone enough but coming face to face… Coming face to face was something else entirely.

He was so fucking _thin._

“That’s your first thought?”

Ivo stared in surprise before his surprise turned to pride in realizing he and his son were literally eye to eye. In his mind, he knew how tall 6’ 4’’ was but seeing it was an entirely different thing. “So…am I to assume that you can read my mind?”

Hooking his thumbs in the belt loops of his jeans that were barely even holding on his hips, Joseph tilted his head in a considering manner, watching Ivo with careful eyes. “I’ve had a good maybe…almost couple years now to think about what I’ve always wanted to say. I’m standing here now and yet I can’t think of one word of it.”

“I’ve been here for a couple years?” Totally felt like more. What were a couple? Jesus Christ, he was in for a long ride. “I thought it was way more than that.”

Joseph just nodded as if that meant anything at all. He looked more man than boy and it shamed him that he didn’t see his son grow up. “You know, I’m supposed to turn twenty-one this year. Crazy, right? Officially an adu-”

“Supposed to?” Ivo asked, that pit of panic from before growing larger to where it felt like the entirety of his insides were dissolving in acid. “Supposed to turn?”

A huge smile grew on Joseph’s face. It was sinister and wrong in everyway that a Joseph smile shouldn’t look like. “Surprise, Ivo,” Joseph whispered, slippery as a snake, as he leaned closer. All Ivo was smelled was smoke. Not smoke like cigarettes but smoke like something had burned. Charred. “I stopped growing a few years back. Happens when you die.”

He’d died. He was _dead_. Which was why Ivo’s clicker had conked out. There was no more maker to keep the creation alive. “You…I…”

“It’s no biggie,” Joseph said with a shrug, the smile disappearing as fast as it’d come. “I’ve moved on. Anyone who actually cared has surely moved on. And that’s totally cool. I don’t want the world to stop spinning just because I offed myself. I’d rather everyone kept living and shit.” He laughed and stared out at the trees surrounding them, a nostalgic look on his boney face. “I’d even prefer it if you were still living but here we are.”

It just wasn’t entering his mind. He was here and Joseph was here and they were both here-

“Because I died, yeah. Totally cray cray, I know.”

Grasping the bridge of his nose and shutting his eyes against the tears that were burning as they built, Ivo snapped “Can you stop making it like a fucking joke?”

“Aw, shit, are you gonna cry, Ivo?” Joseph laughed, sounding astoundingly delighted at the prospect. “That’s cute. Go ahead, I won’t stop you. Take a seat and just cry. I’ve heard crying is gouda for the soul and all that shit.”

“Why’d you do it,” he asked, his voice barely rising above a cracked whisper. He was standing here, in front of his child, asking why he killed himself. It was wrong on so many levels. This whole scenario was just wrong. “Why.”

Silence met his question. It’d never once been silent in this forest since he’d been here and yet it was so quiet that all that could be heard was Ivo’s sniffles as he plopped himself down on the floor. His kid was dead and it was more or less his fault and he felt horrible and Vesela was alone and it was just all his damn fault. “I…I was going to call,” Ivo laughed, shaking his head into his arms where he sat curled in on himself, head to his chest. “I was going to. Just a couple days. That’s it.”

The stench of char overtook his senses, signaling that Joseph had gotten closer. And when he spoke, he realized that he was crouched right in front of him. “Call for what. You called every day anyways. What was so special about this one?”

“I was ready,” Ivo whispered into the deathly silence. “I was _ready._ ”

A finger tapped on his head, a gesture so nostalgically familiar except Ivo was typically the one doing the tapping. Lifting his head and blinking through blurry eyes at a face that was both so familiar and so unknown, Ivo waited and watched as those intelligent eyes watched him. Joseph gave him a soft smile and replied “I was ready too.”

“You had an entire life ahead of you.”

Joseph considered this for a moment as he looked out at the vast forest. “Maybe. Maybe I did. I know that to some people it doesn’t make an ounce of sense but I was ready, tatko.” He turned back to Ivo who was still trying to process the fact that he’d been called ‘tatko.’ “I did it for me. It was my choice. And, yeah, I know that most people wouldn’t understand that but the people who matter will. It’s okay. For once in my life, it’s okay. And that is okay.”

He made it sound so simple. So easy as if him losing his life, losing his entire chance at it, was no big deal. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“Would it have made a difference?” It’d eat at him for the rest of his non-existent afterlife if he didn’t get an answer. Ivo needed to know. He’d probably end up feeling worse but it didn’t matter. This wasn’t about him. “If I had called in time…” he searched Joseph’s eyes that seemed older than they’d ever been, “would you still be alive?”

Plopping down onto the grass, Joseph stretched out his legs that went on for miles and leaned back on his hands as he considered the question. All the consideration took more effort than Joseph must have thought because he stayed silent for even longer and laid himself down, staring up into the canopy of branches. “I guess…it’d just depend. Depend on when you told me, what sort of mood I was in at the time…like, if you’d told me before the summer started, I think maybe a lot of things might’ve been different.”

Ivo’d been ready since the start of summer so…he wasn’t sure if he’d been able to say it sincerely enough before it.

“But, I know you and I know that if you’d been ready by then, you would’ve called which means that’s an unreal expectation for the both of us. Now, if you’d called when life starting crashing down to the point of oppressiveness, it probably would’ve brought me a lot of relief.”

Ouch.

“If you’d called once Lynch got rid of me like I was the lowest shit he’d ever seen which subsequently was around the same time Finlay told me he likes me, then Finlay might be a very happy man right now. Who knows? Maybe it would’ve given me the stability to hold it together a little longer-”

He didn’t know who this Lynch was but he was officially an asshole. But he did want to hear more of this could’ve been happy Finlay. “Is he a nice kid?”

Joseph’s head turned to stare at Ivo sitting beside him. They were both ignoring the fact that Diana was behind them eating God knew what as she listened in. “Finlay?” Ivo nodded causing Joseph to laugh. “Man, you got pissed over Emilio who’s like an angel compared to Finlay. What makes you think you’d like Finlay any better?”

“I wasn’t pissed about Emilio per se,” Ivo muttered, refusing to meet those burning eyes. They weren’t Vesela’s in color or even shape but they knew how to sear like hers. “I was pissed about the whole…situation.”

“Situation.”

This could go bad in a million ways with just a simple step in the wrong direction. But this was it; if Ivo was going to fix everything, this was the only chance he’d ever had. Both their lives were over but that didn’t mean they couldn’t have peace in this freak ass afterlife. “I,” Ivo began, making sure to lock eyes with that burning gaze. If he faltered, there was no other chance. “I know that I was wrong.”

“How very interesting.”

He knew exactly what Joseph was doing which was why he was specifically ignoring his son even while staring at him. “One, I should’ve never put my hands on you. I know that. I’ve always known that. That is mistake number one. Two-”

The challenging light in Joseph’s eyes died, evaporating in pained sorrow. “That’s not mistake number one, Ivo.”

Biting his lip and trying to track his memories, Ivo didn’t understand how he’d already fucked up. “I…” he blinked in confusion, not knowing how he’d already veered off course, “No…?”

“No.”

Scratching at his hair, Ivo’s eyes dropped to the grass and sighed. “I don’t…I don’t know how to put into words what I need to say. I know what I want to say but…sorry doesn’t seem like it suffices.”

A snort erupted, so loud and clear that even the birds seemed disturbed.

That was plenty of an answer to that.

“Finlay,” Ivo said, trying to take back some ground he’d already lost, “he handsome?”

Quiet met his question for a time before Joseph replied in a bewildered voice. “What?

Despite himself – he felt really stupid for it – he blushed. It sounded stupid and it was ridiculous of him to ask when they had so many other things to work through but he didn’t know _how_ to work through them. This was…a temporary break. “Uh, well…what’s he look like?”

“Why?”

Okay, this wasn’t working. Not a shocker. “Uh…”

The tiniest bit of his mouth curved up, cracking that blank façade. “You’re like a vegan in meat market, man. Jesus Christ.” Sighing and sitting up, Joseph rested his check in his palm and watched Ivo curiously. “Why don’t you just say what you’ve been thinking? That’s a great start, y’know.”

“What I’ve been thinking?” Joseph nodded, almost eagerly. “How do you know what I’m thinking?”

“Buddy, you’re in my playground,” Joseph laughed, sounding like the child that had left all those years ago. “And being that I’ve spent the last couple years with Atanas, I’m a smartass here now, lemme tell you.” He tapped his forehead with a long thin tattooed finger, “My thinkbox has been learning.”

There was a lot to take out of that but it was the name that caught Ivo. “Atanas? Like…your prády-?”

“Prádyádo, yeah. The man’s a pretentious asshole but he’s my pretentious asshole.” Joseph laughed and added “You’re looking a bit confused over there, Lord Kavinsky. Don’t you know that your father-in-law came from a magical family?”

“I didn’t exactly understand it but I knew that much,” Ivo muttered, not appreciating feeling less than everything here. He didn’t quite get how it worked but he knew that Timotei had been buying strange things for years. Ivo didn’t know much about Vesela’s grandfather – Vesela didn’t either – but apparently the man was something else. “Is he here too?”

Joseph shrugged, taking a second to glance around. “The man likes to disappear every now and then. He’s got like…business and shit or something. Dunno, he doesn’t tell me these things. I have to earn them or whatever.”

At least Joseph hadn’t been alone all this time. “This…is gonna sound kind of selfish,” Ivo began with a tired sigh, stretching out his legs and leaning back on his hands, “but…do you hate me?”

His son blinked at him for a few moments, examining him carefully before asking softly “Would it hurt if I said yes?”

“Yes. I wouldn’t be surprised but that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t hurt.”

Nodding slowly, Joseph murmured “I’ll give you my answer if you just say what you’re thinking. What you would’ve said when you called.”

Ivo had tried and it’d come out wrong. How did he know that he wasn’t going to fuck it up again? They may not be fixed but at least they were sitting and having a conversation. He really didn’t want to ruin that. It was almost like the old days if they kept ignoring the monster under the bed.

“Please.”

Fuck. He wasn’t just going to ignore that. “I,” Ivo began with a deep breath and a swear that this wasn’t going to go wrong. “I fucked…oh…”

He knew what his first mistake was.

Joseph smiled, his eyes sparkling in a way that Ivo hadn’t seen in years. “Yes?”

Sitting up straight while rubbing his hands together, Ivo scooted forward with complete disregard to grass stains and took Joseph’s hands in his. Joseph almost pulled his hands back but settled in with a cautious curiosity. “I fucked up. Big fucking time. And, yeah, I beat the fuck-”

“Beat the fag but who’s keeping track.”

The bitter anger was deserved so Ivo let it go. He wasn’t going to be thrown off track. “And I put you in a terrifying position that you should have never been put in. That all stems from the fact that I was an ignorant fuck who didn’t bother understanding that love can…” Ivo dove through his brain, trying to find the correct words, “What me and mayko have, what’s between us, it didn’t happen because I’m a man and she’s a woman. It’s because we care for each other. We make each other laugh and we know how to help each other when we’re upset. That isn’t exclusive to us. That’s just love.”

His son was sitting there patiently, a completely blank look on his face. The only thing that gave away his emotions was how his hands tightened on Ivo’s own. Ivo was going to make this right. Even if Joseph didn’t forgive him, he still deserved to hear these words in hopes that maybe he’d finally get a little peace.

“Emilio knew how to make you smile in ways that no one else did. And maybe this Finlay did too. That’s what’s important, not whether it’s a dude or not. And I’m so fucking sorry that it took me this long to realize it. I’m sorry that we had to come to this point before I could tell you.”

With that blank look still on his face, Joseph sat there patiently like he was waiting for something. A minute passed of them staring at each other before Ivo’s eyes went wide with the realization of what he still needed to say. Joseph laughed with sparkling anticipation lighting up his face like a firework on the Fourth, his…mind reading technique knowing what it was.

He didn’t like this technique of his at all.

“You, Joseph Kavinsky, are gay,” Ivo said, cupping his child’s bony ass face in his hands, “and that’s a beautiful thing.”

Joseph smiled, tears in his eyes as he threw his arms around Ivo’s neck, engulfing him in a hug that smelled too much of char. This wasn’t forgiveness, Ivo knew that, but it was acceptance. But that was more than enough for now and more than he deserved anyways.

It was a beautiful start.


	16. Joseph Kavinsky

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [sambamart](http://www.sambamart.tumblr.com)
> 
> Hello!! I know it's been like fifty years and I'm so sorry o.o Life has been hectic and I won't go into details because y'all are here for story not deets.  
> This is the LAST CHAPTER. It's both closing and open ended for reasons yet to be explained  
> There's the very end end note after this so please go read it!  
> Thank you all for being such fantabulous readers. I love all y'all!
> 
> Oh hey sidenote, I'm doing nanawrimo this year (you write a first draft of a novel in November. 50k words) so wish me luck! If I'm successful, I might want a beta or two to take a look. Just saying
> 
> Enjoy!

“Question,” his father called from behind him as they walked through the trees. Joseph was still in search for Atanas who’d disappeared on him for what had to be days now. There was no sense of time in dreamland, but by Joseph’s decent estimation, to say days was accurate.

“What?” he called back, coming to a halt and staring off in a particular direction that seemed a little more…congested than the rest. Joseph, with the help of Atanas of course, had slowly began to learn more about his power. It wasn’t much but he learned how to track and tell where he was in the forest just by the feel in the air. He’d learned that this wasn’t just his place which he kind of figured because of Lynch, and that there were others around.

They were far more skilled than him, however. It didn’t matter how much he followed what he thought was a trail, if that person didn’t want to be seen, they weren’t seen. That was to say that he’d never seen a single person because no one wanted to be found apparently. Or he was just too low down on the power totem pole to be worth talking to.

Joseph didn’t know how to hide himself that well quite yet. He could manage the basics like spooking the fuck out of his father and Diana but…they weren’t exactly the prime of the forest. They were chump change compared to what creeped around here.

“Are we ghosts?”

“No.”

His father was silent for a second before asking “Spirits?”

“Isn’t that the same thing?” Joseph said, deciding that they’d go the congested route. Atanas had disappeared on him before but this was way too long of a time, wasn’t it? Unless that man didn’t want to come around anymore now that Joseph had found his father. But no, that wasn’t in Atanas’ character. The man still wanted to mold his protégé, even if he was a dead protégé. Maybe something had happened to him? Joseph doubted it but…There was that time awhile back when the forest wasn’t the best place to be in. It’d been like it was rotting with black ooze everywhere.

“Oh fuck me,” Joseph whispered, coming to a halt. Black ooze? Black fucking ooze like the one that had oozed its way out from his ears. And his nose. And mouth, goddamn. Coincidence?

He thought not.

“Depends on the culture, I think,” his father replied, his voice a haunting thing from the past now that they were face to face again. It was so damn weird seeing and hearing him in the flesh. Dead flesh but flesh nonetheless. “Are we supposed to go this way?”

Joseph turned and stared at his father who was glancing around the trees. Diana had ditched him right after cursing him out for being a heartless fuck or something; he really hadn’t understood her distraught gibberish. But she’d turn up again in no time. He knew her. “Why can’t we?”

Turning his gaze to Joseph, his father walked over to him and said “Well, Diana said we shouldn’t go places we aren’t allowed to. This direction doesn’t feel as strong as that other spot but…”

“You can feel it?” His father shrugged. Joseph stared at this conundrum of a man while biting his lip in thought. He was too aware compared to all the other creations Joseph had come across. Aware as Joseph was but Joseph was the dreamer here. If he’d ever run into Proko, he knew for a fact that he wouldn’t be able to sense a thing no matter how smart Prokopenko was. “You can feel it.”

“Is…that a bad thing?”

Probably not. If anything, it was proof that Ivo should’ve been a dreamer too. “You said dyádo used to buy stuff and you knew they were different. How’d you know that they were different?”

“They felt different.” He raised a brow and considered Joseph for a moment, “Aren’t they supposed to feel that way?”

“Technically,” Joseph began, wondering if it was a good idea to divulge to his father that he was in fact kinda sorta magical. “Yeah, they do have a different feel to them. I know the feel because, obviously, I can experience and create it. Dyádo knew the feeling, I imagine, because of prádyádo. He was aware of what he was looking for. But you knew even without understanding what you were feeling. No one had to explain it to you.”

Scratching at his mess of a head that was strange beyond strange because Ivo Kavinsky did not do messes, his father said “I mean, I guess, but I didn’t know what I was touching. I just knew it was different. And kinda figured that maybe, against all odds, magic existed.”

“That’s more than anyone else would’ve ever guessed.”

His father just shrugged again, apparently finding more interest in a stray leaf that fell from a tree. “I guess. It’s not a big deal, is it? I’m sure there’s other people who can sense the magic too.”

Joseph stood there, pursing his lips, annoyed by this lack of interest. Here they were in this magical forest and this fuck was more interested in a damn leaf? “Whatever,” Joseph muttered, rolling his eyes and continuing on their trail.

“Did I say something wrong?” his father asked, suddenly by Joseph’s side while sounding a little concerned. Good because Joseph liked the idea of him walking on glass around him. “I just figure that if I can feel it, then other-”

“You think it’s that simple!” Joseph snapped, whirling around to stop his father in his tracks. Standing there, literally nose-to-nose, he hissed “You think this,” he gestured at the forest around them, “is that easy? That it requires zero effort?” His father just blinked at him, his face blank. “Do you get the struggle that comes with all of this?”

“I…imagine that it isn’t easy-”

Cutting him off with a dry laugh, Joseph snorted “You imagine? Yo, man, what the fuck do you think you even know?”

Giving him a considering look, his father replied “I have a feeling that I don’t know a lot. And I’m sorry that I don’t-”

“You’re sorry that you don’t?” Lord, he’d gotten stupid with age, hadn’t he? Shaking his head and huffing, Joseph laughed again and resumed his walking. He just wasn’t up for this. His goal had been to find his father but it just…it wasn’t going right. Joseph wasn’t exactly sure how he’d thought it’d go but arguing wasn’t it. “You just going to stand there?”

He could literally hear his father’s teeth grinding and Joseph had a feeling he was pushing the man’s buttons with all this attitude. Ivo Kavinsky didn’t allow attitude. Joseph would prefer if they just had it out already really because then they might actually be able to get somewhere with each other. “No, no, I’m coming.” His father sighed, “Not gonna lie, I’m pretty sick of walking. And grass…and trees. And fucking goddamn birds.”

It was against his attitude right now but Joseph couldn’t help but laugh. “I can’t seem to get enough of it. Maybe it’s because I’ve been here when it’s not so peaceful.”

“How does that happen?”

“What? The peace?”

“Well, yeah, but I meant- fuck!” Joseph turned and watched his father glare at a loose branch that had whipped him out of nowhere. His father figured it was out of nowhere but Joseph smiled from the truth. “Anyways, I mean being here. Like you’re…you’re…”

“Dead.”

Taking in a deep breath with his eyes shut tight, his father stood in silence for a moment before his eyes opened and he resumed his walking. “That thing. So, uh, because of that, you’re here. And because of that, I’m also here. But like, what about when we’re not…deceased-”

“Dead.”

“I’m not a fan of such an icky word.”

Joseph snorted and rolled his eyes. “Okay, Mr. Mobster. Look, man, it’s been more or less a few years since I died so just get with it. Everyone has made their peace and we’re all happy.”

Or, so Joseph hoped.

He really had no way of knowing how everyone had taken his death. Joseph knew that the people who mattered would take it hard initially, but he also knew that they were strong and understanding. They’d get it. Eventually. That was more than he could ever ask for anyways.

“You know,” Joseph called to the slow poke behind him, “when dyádo found out about me, he told me not to tell anyone. Especially you.” Joseph had always figured that maybe his father would hate him for it or something more witchy or something. Like he’d be an abomination. Now, Joseph wasn’t so sure. His father seemed pretty damn accepting about magic. “Why do you think?”

“Who knows. Maybe that old fart was mad at me that day or something.”

“You don’t take it personally?”

“Nah.”

Joseph paused at a clearing, losing that magic ‘scent.’ Who’d ever been around had disappeared. It was a shame because Joseph just wanted to meet someone else once. He’d met Lynch, sure, but Lynch was worse at it than him. They were both pretty crappy dreamers. But to meet a pro? That’d be amazeballs.

His father came to a stop beside him. “Are we looking for something in particular or…?”

Cocking his head and taking a look around, Joseph’s eyes caught on a slight movement in a large oak. Or at least, he’d thought so. It disappeared even quicker than he’d seen it. The air crackled with energy that oddly felt a bit like Lynch’s magic but that was as ridiculous as Joseph trying to be friends with him had been. Or enemies. Or whatever the hell Joseph had been going for.

Point was, it was ridiculously ridiculous to the max. His magic tasting meter had to be off.

“Technically, I’m looking for Atanas but I don’t mind getting sidetracked along the way. There’s always something to find if you look hard enough.”

Resting an arm on Joseph’s shoulder as if that was totally gouda, his father asked “Do you? Look hard enough?”

Joseph flicked a glance to the arm and then to his father’s face. It was a stare down between the two of them, neither quite willing to be the one to give in on this simple battle of wills. They were Kavinsky’s for fuck’s sake; they didn’t just give in from one measly stare.

“I’m so not over the fact that our eyes meet,” his father laughed, letting his arm slide down. “Jesus fuck.” Putting his hands on his hips, he glanced around the clearing much like Joseph had. “Okay, so, I’m obviously not a pro here but…” he bit at his lip, his eyes narrowing, “doesn’t it feel kind of weird here?”

He had no way of knowing who Lynch was so that familiar feel of magic couldn’t be what the man was talking about. Joseph wasn’t even sure he’d felt what he thought he’d felt. “What do you mean?”

“The air feels…” his father waved his arms around in an attempt to point out what he meant even though there was definitely nothing to point out in the empty ass clearing. “It feels…wrong.”

Wrong? If it was wrong then Joseph should be able to feel it too. Taking a look around at the trees that were turning their leaves for the upcoming fall- “Fall?” Joseph muttered, staring up at the trees whose leaves had a slight yellowing tinge to them. “What in the hell…”

Looking up where Joseph was looking, his father asked “Is that not- actually, no. I’ve been here a while and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a yellowing leaf. Not once. And I’ve seen a lot of damn trees.”

Something was wrong. Something like the black ooze shit except this was killing the forest slowly. Or aging it. Or something. The balance was off somewhere, and this here was the starting point. Maybe this was why Atanas hadn’t come back? “This is a problem.”

“I figured as much. How severe of a problem are we talking though?”

Joseph wasn’t sure. But if the forest was turning leaves, then it had to be a major problem. The forest didn’t just turn leaves because it felt like it. Or at least, not that Joseph knew of. Atanas had been gone for more than a few days, the forest was turning leaves, he’d fallen in a huge mud puddle yesterday…

Yeah, something had to be up. Joseph didn’t just fall in mud puddles.

“Hell if I know,” Joseph muttered, walking to the trunk of a tree that was peeling its own bark. It was like it was diseased or something. “Something’s festering though; I know that much.” Rubbing his hand along the cracking trunk, Joseph said “And that’s problem enough.”

His father came to stand beside his shoulder and despite himself, Joseph’s body eased him away a few inches. His body didn’t give a crap about whatever forgiveness road they had started on; it remembered just fine what the power of the body beside him could do. “So…is it fixable?”

“You’re asking the wrong person, Lord Kavinsky,” Joseph snorted, walking away from the tree while feigning disinterest. This was a major concern but it wasn’t like he wanted to go on a ‘save the forest’ mission with his father. Joseph had standards, thank you. “You gotta find big honcho Atanas and ask that. I’m a pipsqueak that ain’t know shit. Forest wants to die, then it can die. Fuck it.”

From the look he was earning himself, Joseph knew that his father had completely caught his bluff. And why wouldn’t he? The man was an expert at detecting bullshit. “Okay, whatever you say,” his father snorted, shoving his hands in the pockets of his jeans. Spending eternity in jeans had to suck but Joseph didn’t feel enough of an urge to get him a change of clothing. “Where do we go from here then?”

He hated how his father just assumed that there was a ‘we.’ Just because they may have taken a step forward, did not mean that Joseph was totally gouda. Sure, he was easy, but he wasn’t _that_ easy. “We, Ivo?” One of those impeccable brows rose into his father’s messy hair. “Who said anything about we?”

“Isn’t there one?”

“Bold of you to assume, no?”

With a tilt of his head and a slow nod, his father shrugged as though he didn’t give a damn. It bothered Joseph that unlike his father, he couldn’t read the bullshit meter as well as he could. “I guess so. But I’ve always been a bit of a bold man.” Sighing and losing that very Kavinsky air, his father murmured “Look, I know that we’re not okay. I know that. I know that me giving an apology isn’t anywhere near enough to cover for the shit I’ve done.”

Joseph couldn’t help but roll his eyes. “Well, aren’t we just self-aware.”

Ignoring him, his father continued “I can stand here and act like everything is fine. I can stand here and smile and ignore the fact that every time I look at you, I hate myself just a little more because you look like one of the goddamn junkies on the corner that I pay for information sometimes.”

It sounded like Joseph had a job opportunity if he’d ever needed it. Good to know if he wasn’t already very dead.

“It doesn’t matter who might’ve played whatever hand in our problems, I am the main reason our lives went to hell.” Taking a seat in the patchy grass where he stood, his father rested his hand in his chin and stared at Joseph like he could see every inch of his tarnished soul. “There are so many maybes that I have thought about over the years. So many but then I realized that what’s the point? The time for maybe was done. I did what I’d done and that was that.”

“And here we are,” Joseph couldn’t help but whisper, resting his chin on his updrawn knees. “So what now?”

“Well,” his father said, making his thinking face with a corner of his mouth quirked down, “I don’t know. If there is a moving forward for us, it’s on your time, not mine. I’ve caused you so much pain and so much suffering. I know there’s no ‘we,’ Joseph, I know. But you can’t blame an old fucker for trying. You and me have a long road to travel and I can only hope that you’ll even let me travel that road with you. I’m not going to pressure you, I’m not going to rush you. All I can do is pray that within this eternity that we’ve been given, that you’ll find it in you to forgive me. That’s it.”

Not meeting his father’s piercing gaze, Joseph stared up at the dying tree, seeing his last couple years reflected back. He’d been slowly dying, little by little, just like this tree. This tree was more likely willing to accept help unlike Joseph had been. This tree wouldn’t mind having people nurture it back to life, no matter how much of a struggle it’d be. Joseph had been too exhausted to even try but this tree…this tree had a good chance. “If I’d survived this attempt, what would you have done?”

“Probably come straight to you.”

Resting the side of his head on his arms and knees, Joseph whispered “Why. What would’ve been different from all the other times?”

“Me.” Joseph blinked up at his father who was suddenly standing above him before crouching down to his level. “Me, Joseph. You weren’t the problem. I was. I am. There was never anything wrong with you in the first place.”

Somehow, he made it all sound so simple as if everything hadn’t become so complicated because of him. “You know, sometimes, I wish I had the guts to punch you.”

His father’s face lit up in surprise before he broke into laughter, plopping down onto the floor, complete disregard to the dirt under him. “Maybe it would’ve done us both some good.”

Joseph doubted it being that the one time Joseph had ever laid hands on his father, he’d suffered. And it hadn’t even been out of anger, it’d been defense.

“Look, brat,” his father said, pulling up a knee and resting his arm on it, “we’ve got a long way to go. Lucky for us, here we are, right? There’s nothing better for us to do than talk. We both know we’re not getting anywhere without some talk.”

“I don’t know if I’m quite ready for us to get somewhere, to be honest.” Hearing his father’s words earlier had made him happier than he’d been in a long time but it didn’t make him okay. He’d found peace but Joseph still wasn’t necessarily okay. Better, yeah, better than he’d been for a shit ton of years but okay?

Really, he had no clue if he really knew what that meant.

His father shrugged, “You don’t need to know. Just let me know when you are. Take all the time you need. Once you’re ready, not before. Like I said, I’m not going to push anything. I want you to want us because of what you want, not because of what I do.”

It was a mildly confusing sentence but Joseph took it anyways. Scratching over his ear, Joseph sighed and leaned back on his arms, stretching his legs out to where they pushed against his father. “So…what do we do until then?”

“You tell me.”

Their eyes trailed a leaf as it twirled its way between them. “I mean, I guess we could go on an adventure, dear hobbit.”

Scrunching his nose in distaste, his father muttered “I’m way too tall to be a hobbit, thank you.”

“But hobbits are the ones who always have fun. I think,” Joseph paused as another leaf fell, his eyes glancing over to his father who was entranced by yet another, “you and me could use a little fun for now. What better than an adventure?”


	17. Very End End Note

And here we are for the final time.

Cray cray, I know.

With the end of this story, my canon trilogy about Joseph Kavinsky is officially finished. Thank you to every single one of you amazing people. I got to talk with some of you guys and just know that without any of you, I don’t think I could’ve pulled it off. It was you guys who kept me going. Your thoughts, ideas, questions, and just words of encouragement were everything.

Thank you guys so much. You have no clue.

This story grew in ways I never saw coming. It was never meant to be three and it was never meant to be more than fifty chapters, tops. Can you believe how much it became? Almost like what, 400 chapters combined? Almost a million words? Not even counting Snapshots.

I’d be nowhere without my very amazing beta. She started as a reader whose comments I loved to read and now she’s a good friend. I don’t think enough thank yous exist in the world that would capture how much she deserves.

I’m doing Nanowrimo this year to write a story that’s been itching my brain so I won’t be doing fanfics for November and maybe December too. It’s like…take x-men, base it biology, include mafias, think of Japanese internment camps, and shove the main setting in LA. I have no idea if I described that right. Pitches are a bitch.

Anyways, this trilogy may be over but fanfiction never dies bitches. I’ll still be doing stories and I hope that I’ll hear from familiar voices because I actually do remember each and every one of you guys. Don’t think I don’t.

The soonest thing you guys can expect is me finishing up Emilio’s story and Snapshots that I need to catch up on. Of course, Snapshots never close so if there’s something you’d like to see, from any timeline for any character, let me know. The next new story that’ll be coming is what my beta and I call the happy au. Joseph survives his attempt and we try to keep the boy alive. Don’t expect flowers and butterflies though because recovery is a long road, my friends. And from the Dream Pack, we have Swan coming up next so stay tuned!

I love y’all and thank you for enjoying what I write. One day, you’ll be enjoying my original novels too. If you mention that you’ve read my fanfics, I’ll send you signed books lol. I promise. I’d love to hear what you guys thought of my stories and writing so make a gal happy, yeah?

 

 

Signing off officially from my monster,

 

Sam


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